The Homecoming Game: a story of success
By Olivia Garrett
Image of the Homecoming Game provided by Olivia Garrett
As bright stadium lights flash on and the booming announcer's voice resounds, Owasso's 2023 homecoming game begins. Days of dressing to themes and garnering excitement peaked with this annual event, thus marking the end of this year's homecoming week. With such buildup surrounding the game, coaches and players had to dial in and focus on practicing their game-winning strategies.
“Teams approach the homecoming game with added enthusiasm, motivation, and attention to detail, aiming to create a memorable experience for everyone involved,” Assistant Coach Antonio Graham states.
This pivotal game of the season is an extremely important event for the team. Being deep in the middle of the season, the stakes are especially high. Families of players, students and many more crowd to get a chance to watch the sport. However, the growing anticipation is not always a beneficial thing when it comes to the players’ performance.
“With so much going on for homecoming, it also can cause distraction, and the lack of focus for your players can’t be very good,” Graham responds.
The players are put in a spotlight, chanted and cheered at and are highly viewed by their peers. Even through the distractions, players must still be able to play to the best of their ability. Players must prepare both mentally and physically in order to be fully equipped for the sudden and unexpected events of a football game. When playing the Mustang Broncos, team members had a general idea of what to expect and maintained a productive demeanor because of it.
“I went into the game with high expectations… you have to believe you can win,” player Ashton Smith proclaims.
Describing his upbeat mindset, Smith credits his confident frame of mind as his personal guide to excellence. The players, carrying this same positive attitude into the game, dominated on the field, winning the game by a staggering 54-3. Only letting the Broncos get three points by them, the tactics used were shown to be tremendously successful. While the game had its fair share of ups and downs, this indisputable landslide of a win can be attributed to many things.
“Our coaches did an unbelievable job to prepare our players to be successful for the game,” Graham adds contentedly. “Also, it was really good to see that our players did a great job of executing the game plan against Mustang.”
Rejoicing in their fortune, Graham recognizes how the win was a team effort. Graham credits this achievement not to only the players but the coaches who shaped them. From long practices to hours of watching footage, all members of the team can attest to the hard work that went into this victory. After suffering a substantial defeat in the week previous, persons involved in the homecoming game were that much more elated at the considerable win.
“It's an amazing feeling to win after the week we had last week. Winning is hard, and it is very important to enjoy [the wins]; there's no feeling like it,” Graham exclaims.
Simply stated, the team was overjoyed with their homecoming game success. Celebrating with a team of your peers is a truly unparalleled feeling. It can completely change the air after an earlier loss and rejuvenate the players to take on a new, revived spirit. They hope to continue practicing this constructive attitude to carry their success into future games.
“I’m excited for the next game,” Smith smiles. “We’re always preparing for the next thing.”
Keeping their fortunate perspective, team members and coaches are extremely satisfied with the outcome of this homecoming game. Even so, they never stop preparing for the foreseeable future; this landslide of a win will not put a dent in the weeks of hard work to come. As the team proceeds to be upheld by their diligent administration and athletic department, their victories will continue to be a result of all the many hard-working people involved in this production.