The 2017-2018 school year has now started, beginning with Abraham Lincoln High School’s own football team playing against Silver Creek! Though JV and Varsity could not win the game, we can only hope to watch our players practice more and get stronger! Interviewing a JV player, Alex VonAppen {number 84}, and a Varsity player, Aidan Lopez {number 92}, I managed to hear how they felt about the way the game had gone and how they feel about the upcoming games against Willow Glen, Overfelt, Pioneer, and more.

Seeing as how the game against Silver Creek ended, these two football players seemed quite confident when it came to talking about going against Willow Glen High School’s team. “I feel confident in myself, I think the team feels pretty confident,” Alex had stated when asked how he felt about going against Willow Glen, “But I say we have a pretty good chance; it can go either way tomorrow. They’re a lot better than they were before from what I’ve heard but it can go either way.” Despite the recent loss against Silver Creek, Alex sounds sure and confident in his statement that they will have a strong chance at winning this game. As he had also said that the WGHS football players are “slightly shorter guys” and “the coaches say they’re a little squirrely”, I believe in his statement that the Lincoln Lions’ football team has a better chance at winning.

I had also asked him about how he felt on his chances of going against the other schools this year, his response was, “I think Willow Glen was the only school that scored on us. We stopped two other schools that were really good so I think we’re going to do decent against other schools this year.” As a football player, Alex’s confidence was not surprising when talking about going against the other schools and neither was Aidan’s when I interviewed him next.

“We made adjustments for offense so we can better understand what we’re supposed to do for our job,” He had spoken, seeming very confident in their improvement to play against Willow Glen, “Defense-wise, we just changed up our schemes for a little bit.” Aidan’s confidence and belief in his group was definitely easy to see and I can already tell that our football teams will do their best to win for Lincoln. When asked about how he feels the other games will go, his answer was, “I know the other upcoming games are going to be a lot tougher than the Willow Glen game but either way it’s going to be a win for Lincoln or a win for the opposing school.”

These two players have unconditional confidence in themselves and their team, that much is clear. I have no doubts that the others are just as confident and I can’t wait to see how much they’ve improved with their practices and changes.