Senior Year: Titan Football

Lee’s Summit West High School Song

When you gaze across the open plain,
You’ll see a glowing flame.
A flame of wisdom, pride and honesty
That is home for me.
Titan strong and Titan true
The path of knowledge of which we choose.
We will always be loyal to the silver and navy blue.

May you enter these hallowed halls of West
And strive to pass the test.
Building lives of pure integrity
For all to plainly see.
Lee’s Summit West
We’ll be true.
Our loyalty lies
With the silver and navy blue.

Along with the Star Spangled Banner, this is how we kicked off our Friday nights this fall - listening to the Lee's Summit West High School Song!

Then ... we'd hear the Rolling Stones, "Start Me Up" and we knew kick off was just minutes away!

Hunter's senior year he started each game playing Center and did an impressive job.  He learned so much - in that position, in football, in life, in building loyalty - from the Titan Football team.

Below are a collection of some of my favorite highlights and pics of the season:

The boys huddling before kick off!

Hunter and his girlfriend, Ashley

Hunter pumps up the crowd. Sadly, this was one (of only two) games they lost all season.

#59 - With his O Line crew

Dayne, Daphne and Olivia at the Homecoming Parade

Dayne was a regular attendee at the football games!  (so much socializing to do!)

Papa & Susan show their support!

Game 8 @ Lees Summit Titans win 56-0.  This was especially great because the coach of this team made a point to boast about how bad they were going to get revenge on the Titan's after the previous season's loss.

One of Hunter's biggest fans: his Nana!

A very rare moment.

Definitely a big fan of Hunters; his Pops!

Hunter with Dick & Marilyn, who joined us for Titan Football Senior Night.

One of the major highlights of the season was the game versus Glendale (Springfield).  The Titans had several things against their favor, largely was the field in which they had to play on.  Nearly all of the area football fields are field turf - not the "old school" dirt and grass!  Glendale, however, had an old school field and they planned to use that to their full advantage.  Despite we had experience near drought conditions, somehow their field was drenched and had mud puddles galore!   About halfway through the game the referee noticed several players who were playing with the "wrong size" cleats.  So, not only were the conditioned to play on that field, they were taking further advantage by using cleats that ensured they could maintain traction and not slip and slide all over the field - as our boys were!  Halftime score was 28-0, Glendale.  This was a concept so foreign to the Titans.  They weren't going to have their football season end like this.  The Titan's let Glendale score the first 28 points, and they went on to score the last ... ....                    T H I R T Y  F I V E points!  Yes, they won after being down the entire first half!  The game was right out of a movie where it's predictable ending - the team who is not looking like it will win! - does!  Only, in real life it seemed a sure thing that they were NOT going to win!  That was one of the best football games we had ever witnessed!

The 2011 Titan Football season was a great one!  The team showed so much class (they had several shut out games back to back at one point in the season!) and learned so much about team building, loyalty, and as the last game of the season taught them: devastation.

The boys took Titan Football to the semi finals in 2011.  To the surprise of no one, they played the same team they had played the year in the semifinals (and defeated): Staley High School. We knew it'd be a tough game.  Rumor had it that Staley has dedicated each Monday's practice to The Titans.  They wanted revenge for not getting the chance to play for the State Championships in 2010 (that the Titans went on to win!  Click HERE to read that post!)

The Kansas City Star summed up the game best in their title:

Staley needs four overtimes to vanquish Lee’s Summit West 76-70

The game seemed to last forever. One team would score, the other team would score.  This repeated for over four hours.  It was just a matter of which team would make the slightest mistake.  Sadly, it was our Titans who did.

The full article was a great one: staley-needs-four-overtimes-to-beat-the-Titans

The field that night was heart-wrenching.  A football field filled with high school boys in tears is one that a mother would be okay to never see again.  Somber filled the field.  A field we were so used to hearing whooping and hollering was instead filled with sobs and coaching and managers consoling the boys.

The season's final scores: