Just what are they feeding the kids in Everett, Washington? And the Wildcats? They’re mammoth. In fact the Archbishop Murphy’s high school football team, the Wildcats, with 3 players at 300+ pounds - a center, left guard, and tackle - and another 6 at 250, has scared opposition players and parents to, if not death, at least to forbidding their kids to match up against these private school beasts. 5 teams withdrew from their upcoming games, leaving the Wildcats in pure practice mode since September 16th.
Private school being a key criterion here. As opposed to public schools, the team is allowed to recruit over a, no pun intended, wider area in Washington. In fact the radius player pool is 50 miles. Thus they can, with either forklifts or transport trucks, cart the gargantuan prospects to its school, knowing they’re getting the heavy cream of the crop.
It shouldn’t be a total shock, the size of these teens. Growing up in Everett, specifically, and in Washington, generally, has had the characteristics of both polities for vastness drip into the DNA of these kids by osmosis. Consider that Everett’s Boeing facility is the largest building in the world and the European founder of Everett, Dennis Brigham, built his house on a not-too-small 160 acre lot. The state of Washington, for its part, is the biggest producer in the U.S of apples, sweet cherries, pears, hops and red raspberries. It’s the second biggest in America for the production of potatoes, grapes and onions.
Now, production is one thing, export is another. All these foodstuffs aren’t making it the biggest exporter of same, oh no.
Know why?
Because they’re most likely being delivered (rush) to the cafeteria tables of Archbishop Murphy school, where, undoubtedly at the ends of each, sit their 2 players that weigh 140 pounds per, a running back and a wide receiver, waiting for scraps.
So the Wildcats saw at least 5 of their wins, the cancellations, as Pyrrhic. The opponents’ folks were worried about having the offspring smothered literally. For sure, if the games had been played, the foes would have been crushed statistically. In this season’s first 3 games the Wildcats won by an accumulated tally of 170-0.
So the Wildcat footballers were despondent, not being able to strut their awesomeness and the other schools’ kids were delighted, getting to live another day. And the Wildcats coach, Jerry Jensen who despite playing 2 seasons for the Carolina Panthers, and is a relative pipsqueak coming in at 6”, 235 pounds - was a little peeved. With no patsies to steamroll over he let off a little steam:
“That your Friday game has been forfeited, to me doesn’t really ring true to what we’re trying to teach our young adults here,” Jensen told CBS News. “This is their opportunity to face adversity, power through it, and it will serve them well in their life.”
Easy for him to say, his team wouldn’t be the one facing any adversity. And as for schools such as the Granite Falls High Tigers - that had at least one player tippy-toeing the scales at 117-pounds, they wouldn’t be overcoming adversity so much - as running smack dab into their own insanity. At a community meeting at their local library parents decided they didn’t want to fight against tanks with pea shooters this 2016. (It must have been painful to throw in the towel, but they might have been comforted in their decision somewhat, recalling their beloved Tigers were annihilated by the Wildcats in 2015, losing 66-6 and in 2014 by 56-7.)
Before we cast aspersions on the hugeness of Wildcat schoolsters, let’s read of what they’ve been trying to do, to level the playing field. Tom Hoban, a follower, in an article titled:
“MISSION OF ARCHBISHOP MURPHY SCHOOL, FOOTBALL TEAM ISN’T WELL UNDERSTOOD”
explains: “To create competitive balance, the school plays at the 2A level now but has made attempts to jump two divisions above its natural 1A classification by inquiring with the Metro 3A (King County) league, and last year petitioning the Wesco 3A (Snohomish County) league to let the school in. Both efforts were denied...”
OK, notwithstanding that the nomenclature is baffling one senses, if only slightly, that the school is trying to do something. Maybe it should take the cross symbol off their helmets, donate them to their foes so they can pray they survive, should they decide to play against Archbishop Murphy HS. Maybe, just for kicks, they should recruit big footballers that are lumbering and uncoordinated, not speedy and talented. Maybe they should (if they’re not already doing so) lend out their marvelous looking football complex to other needier schools for their games.
Heck, because the Wildcats are in one seemingly unending growth spurt, it could be why the school does its physical examinations once every 2 years. With these folks the trends are clear – taller and heavier hourly, no matter what, so why record such facts, waste time doing so, every year?
And the school, as a whole, doesn’t take prisoners. This winter, every other day or so, any kid at the school should he or she so desire, can, at 5:55 AM, participate in a strength-and-conditioning session. So even the fans are buff and battle-hardened.
And AMHS football is larger than life - and is now, live, on video too. Their 2016 AMHS Tigers promotional vid is big-time in production values and quality, even if the highlights were taken from Seattle’s King 5 TV News: they still had to cut and paste, and edit the stuff. But be sure of this - the slogan near the video’s end is one big smooth, sturdy piece of scary script.
It reads: "Leave No Doubt.”
Finally, a game.
The Olympic High Trojans actually, courageously-gamely, PLAYED their scheduled contest against the Wildcats late October.
The Wildcats left no doubt, winning 48-0.
Private school being a key criterion here. As opposed to public schools, the team is allowed to recruit over a, no pun intended, wider area in Washington. In fact the radius player pool is 50 miles. Thus they can, with either forklifts or transport trucks, cart the gargantuan prospects to its school, knowing they’re getting the heavy cream of the crop.
It shouldn’t be a total shock, the size of these teens. Growing up in Everett, specifically, and in Washington, generally, has had the characteristics of both polities for vastness drip into the DNA of these kids by osmosis. Consider that Everett’s Boeing facility is the largest building in the world and the European founder of Everett, Dennis Brigham, built his house on a not-too-small 160 acre lot. The state of Washington, for its part, is the biggest producer in the U.S of apples, sweet cherries, pears, hops and red raspberries. It’s the second biggest in America for the production of potatoes, grapes and onions.
Now, production is one thing, export is another. All these foodstuffs aren’t making it the biggest exporter of same, oh no.
Know why?
Because they’re most likely being delivered (rush) to the cafeteria tables of Archbishop Murphy school, where, undoubtedly at the ends of each, sit their 2 players that weigh 140 pounds per, a running back and a wide receiver, waiting for scraps.
So the Wildcats saw at least 5 of their wins, the cancellations, as Pyrrhic. The opponents’ folks were worried about having the offspring smothered literally. For sure, if the games had been played, the foes would have been crushed statistically. In this season’s first 3 games the Wildcats won by an accumulated tally of 170-0.
So the Wildcat footballers were despondent, not being able to strut their awesomeness and the other schools’ kids were delighted, getting to live another day. And the Wildcats coach, Jerry Jensen who despite playing 2 seasons for the Carolina Panthers, and is a relative pipsqueak coming in at 6”, 235 pounds - was a little peeved. With no patsies to steamroll over he let off a little steam:
“That your Friday game has been forfeited, to me doesn’t really ring true to what we’re trying to teach our young adults here,” Jensen told CBS News. “This is their opportunity to face adversity, power through it, and it will serve them well in their life.”
Easy for him to say, his team wouldn’t be the one facing any adversity. And as for schools such as the Granite Falls High Tigers - that had at least one player tippy-toeing the scales at 117-pounds, they wouldn’t be overcoming adversity so much - as running smack dab into their own insanity. At a community meeting at their local library parents decided they didn’t want to fight against tanks with pea shooters this 2016. (It must have been painful to throw in the towel, but they might have been comforted in their decision somewhat, recalling their beloved Tigers were annihilated by the Wildcats in 2015, losing 66-6 and in 2014 by 56-7.)
Before we cast aspersions on the hugeness of Wildcat schoolsters, let’s read of what they’ve been trying to do, to level the playing field. Tom Hoban, a follower, in an article titled:
“MISSION OF ARCHBISHOP MURPHY SCHOOL, FOOTBALL TEAM ISN’T WELL UNDERSTOOD”
explains: “To create competitive balance, the school plays at the 2A level now but has made attempts to jump two divisions above its natural 1A classification by inquiring with the Metro 3A (King County) league, and last year petitioning the Wesco 3A (Snohomish County) league to let the school in. Both efforts were denied...”
OK, notwithstanding that the nomenclature is baffling one senses, if only slightly, that the school is trying to do something. Maybe it should take the cross symbol off their helmets, donate them to their foes so they can pray they survive, should they decide to play against Archbishop Murphy HS. Maybe, just for kicks, they should recruit big footballers that are lumbering and uncoordinated, not speedy and talented. Maybe they should (if they’re not already doing so) lend out their marvelous looking football complex to other needier schools for their games.
Heck, because the Wildcats are in one seemingly unending growth spurt, it could be why the school does its physical examinations once every 2 years. With these folks the trends are clear – taller and heavier hourly, no matter what, so why record such facts, waste time doing so, every year?
And the school, as a whole, doesn’t take prisoners. This winter, every other day or so, any kid at the school should he or she so desire, can, at 5:55 AM, participate in a strength-and-conditioning session. So even the fans are buff and battle-hardened.
And AMHS football is larger than life - and is now, live, on video too. Their 2016 AMHS Tigers promotional vid is big-time in production values and quality, even if the highlights were taken from Seattle’s King 5 TV News: they still had to cut and paste, and edit the stuff. But be sure of this - the slogan near the video’s end is one big smooth, sturdy piece of scary script.
It reads: "Leave No Doubt.”
Finally, a game.
The Olympic High Trojans actually, courageously-gamely, PLAYED their scheduled contest against the Wildcats late October.
The Wildcats left no doubt, winning 48-0.