“I'm proud of every single one of you tonight. All of you played your hearts out, and that’s all I can ask of you to do.” Losing is something someone never wants to do. When you lose in a sport, it's your ultimate form of defeat. For my school, this has been the case for a long time. 

Dickinson is not one of the high schools that gets talked about when you bring up high school sports. The school hasn't been good at many sports for quite some time. That's not the fault of the people who go to my school and play on these sports teams. It's the fault of all of these charter schools that have opened in the past 20-30 years. Charter schools, or magnet schools, whatever you want to call them, have been a big trend in the state of Delaware. The school district I’m in has four choice high schools, and that’s where a lot of the talent for all sports teams has gone. Especially football. 

Dickinson's football hasn't been good since the late 80s. All the banners on the walls of our gym, and not a single one is from this millennium. The football team, something that everyone wants to be proud of, is hard to be proud of when it goes 0-10. Every day at school whenever we have a game coming up, no one tells us that we have a chance, that we’re gonna win this game...all they do is wish us good luck or talk trash about our team. But everyone knows what's gonna happen. We’re gonna lose: by how much is the question. If we’re lucky enough, we’ll put up some points in the 3rd or 4th quarter, but even then it doesn't matter. The game’s already out of reach. Final scores of 42-0, 45-0, 43-0, 41-6...you get the picture. It's never a close game and it won't be for some time. But our coach is trying to change that.

Coach Bufano is the new head coach of the football team. He’s worked hard bringing in new assistant coaches and a new system. It's taken some getting used to, but the players are starting to pick it up. He's trying to change Dickinson from the team that everyone knows they'll beat, to the team that people really have to train for whenever they play them. This is my second year playing with Coach Bufano and I absolutely love it. He knows when he needs to be serious, and when he can joke around with all of us. Some people hate being on a losing squad, and I don't enjoy it, but I don't want to ever be on a different team. I love all the guys on the team and wouldn't ever give up on this team. I’ll be a senior next year, and even if we don't win a game, it doesn't matter to me. All that matters is that I love the team and what we do.