(COVINGTON, La.) — As both a writer for The Paper Wolf and a member of the football squad, I have the unique ability to have a firsthand view of the Wolves’ locker room.

I’ll be honest. I don’t start on the Varsity squad. I don’t often see what happens on the field during the course of a game. However, I do see what happens from the sideline view and in the trenches of practice.

From experience with the Holy Cross Tigers football team in my fifth and sixth grade years as equipment manager, I know that being a 5-A team does not automatically make you a strong, good team; it just means you have a large school. It takes talent to win football games, and a whole lot of heart. Miles and miles of heart. If you don’t have heart, you can’t win.

For the Wolves, we have it all: amazing coaches who care about you and your growth, not only as a player, but as a person, as well as very talented players who are all in for this team and are all helping us succeed in our own ways. The starters may play the games on Friday nights, but it is the second-stringers like myself, fellow sophomores Michael Philippe and Austin Holincheck, junior Connor Stuard, and so many more who run the opposing team’s offense or defense during “scout team” periods every day during practice.

We also have an amazing group of boosters and fans who support us through everything we do. They attend almost every game. The parents, like my own mother and father, always come to support me and the amazing group of teammates that I am proud to call my brothers. When I say everything, I absolutely mean it. Over the summer, they put up with waking up at 6:30 a.m. every morning to bring us to practice, and then to pick us up at 11:30 again. They come to every event that the football team holds: Meet the Team, parent meetings, games, and more. They leave work early to pick us up from practice every single day. And when I say that the team is a group of brothers, I mean it. We suffer together, wake up at 7:00 a.m. every Saturday to run, watch film, and lift weights. We have sweated together, bled together, and fought together.

We work hard to put a product on the field every Friday night and ask the fans to keep supporting us and come to our rivalry game this Friday, Oct. 7, 2016, at Covington High School as we take on the Lions to keep the Jug!