‘I’m just glad to be playing my final year with my friends’

Looking forward. 

The St. Joseph-Ogden football team is embracing the unique opportunity of playing football in March and April due to COVID-19. 

There are only five seniors on the SJO roster this spring, and one of those seniors, Jackson Rydell, is giving football a try for the first time after spending the winter playing basketball.  

“I try not to center my focus on one sport or the other and just take it all in, since this is my first-time playing football,” Rydell said.  “It’s crazy to think about jumping from one sport to the other, but I’m wanting to make the most of my senior year.”

Another senior, Max Shonkwiler, is just happy he had the opportunity to play football his senior season, something that wasn’t promised when the school year began.

Shonkwiler was injured during the first game of the season but is supporting this teammates from the sidelines. 

“I’m just glad to be playing my final year with my friends,” he said. “ I’m just glad we’re getting the opportunity to play, even though it is a shorter season.” 

Senior Brady Buss, who like Shonkwiler, has played for most of his high school career, is also glad to be back on the field.  

“This is a unique situation that we’ve all been through and although things are beginning to get better, we still need to be cautious,” Buss said.

With recent pauses in programs at Unity and PBL, Head Coach Shawn  Skinner knows how crucial staying healthy is and reiterates that message to his team often.

“I told them that they (the players) need to be extra careful,” he said. “We’ve seen how this can spread, and we don’t want to end up like those that can’t play.” 

With just five seniors, Skinner looks at this spring season as a chance to develop some of the juniors and sophomores for the fall season, which should begin as normal in the summer, although there may not be the opportunities for camps like there would be under regular circumstances.

“We want to showcase our seniors and give them as much of an opportunity to play as we can since this is their last chance, but I look at these six games as an extended spring season to give some of our younger players a leg up once the fall season begins.  Everyone in the state is in the same situation, but with our limited number of seniors, we won’t be losing a lot once this limited season is over,” Skinners said.

In addition to Buss, Shonkwiler and Rydell, Xander Rieches and Brock Innes are the other two seniors on the roster.