It’s a hot night in the middle of September. The lights at National Teacher’s Association field turn on. Almost all the Jones athletes have finished up their practices and have headed home to relax or do homework. The soccer team put their last ball into a goal hours ago, and the cross country team has finished running endless loops around the field.
But late nights don’t mean anything to the Jones football team. Whistles blow, pads collide and touchdown balls are caught in the end zone.
A few years ago, the field would have been empty at this time. Then head coach Frank Dickerson, previously an assistant coach at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School, brought forward a vision to make the long-sought-after team a reality.
While the season didn’t start off with a win streak, that quickly turned around, and Dickerson believes the foundation has been set for better years to come.
“I was asked to give a four-year-plan in the beginning, and I came back with one for five years,” Dickerson said. “They knew how serious I was about actually having a program here.”
Late this past winter, the team got started recruiting players and getting to work with conditioning, starting with a rollout of 126 students.
“I’d say about 80% of the players never played football in their life,” Dickerson said. “So a lot of it was just trying to lay the foundation and get the football mindset in the school.”
From there, 59 players came out for summer practices, which Dickerson said helped the coaching staff see what the team truly had.
“I definitely got pushed a lot, but that was one of the most enjoyable parts about it,” Shawn Slaughter, a senior, said, who joined the team after encouragement from Dickerson in the hallway.
Over the summer the team grew close, bonding through grueling workouts and laughing together in between practice reps.
“Everyone on the team is like a big family,” Gabriel Kleinman, a senior, said. Kleinman joined the team as a student-assistant coach after reaching out to Dickerson following the debrief meeting in the spring.
“Football has been a big reason why I actually feel comfortable with this school, walking around and seeing other teammates in the hallways,” Matthew Mastro, a freshman, said. “It’s nice to see some upperclassmen that you know around.”
When the school year began, 48 players waited in anticipation for their first games. Unfortunately, those games did not go their way.
In the team’s first game they lost 64-0 against Hersey. Although better, the second game still resulted in a big loss to Ridgewood, 52-14.
Despite the rough beginning, the losses weren’t necessarily a surprise.
“Hersey is a perennial powerhouse,” Dickerson said. “If you’re gonna give our team a full understanding of how football goes, I would go against people who really are going to bring it to you.”
“You never want to expect yourself to lose, but we went in knowing that those were going to be some of the toughest challenges we’d face all season,” Kleinman said. “We went in expecting a good lesson out of it, and that’s what happened.”
While these losses may shake up some team’s or break them apart, the Jones football team received the opposite treatment.
“I think it brought us together,” Kleinman said. “It put a bitter taste in everybody’s mouth. It made everybody a lot more hungry to do better and play better.”
While the spirit within the team remained positive, the school community responded with backlash. Many players noted the creation of the Instagram account jcpfootballslander as representative of the general sense surrounding the team.
“I was pretty annoyed by it,” Mastro said. “I don’t think anyone on the team really was happy about that.”
Despite the criticism around the school and players getting taunted in the halls, they persevered. Players and coaches worked hard to continue focusing on the next week’s game and block out the noise around them.
“It motivated us to prove ourselves,” Slaughter said. “People saw us as a version of ourselves that we weren’t. We had to change that viewpoint.”
And they did. Following those first two games, the team finished out the season with six straight wins six against Perspectives, Farragut, Mather, Westinghouse, Von Steuben, and Lincoln Park.
Since the beginning of the season, the energy surrounding the team has had a massive shift. The team has received a lot more positive feedback from students around the school and encouragement from those engaged in the team, but that hasn’t gotten to the team’s head.
“The message doesn’t change with the coaching staff,” Kleinman said. “You got to give everyone props when props are due, but you can’t let them get complacent. It always has to be this is how we’re gonna move forward to get better.”
While the season thus far has been a success, Dickerson notes that the goal is about moving forward to next year and beyond.
“One of the best things about being at Jones is that we have such a vast student base,” Dickerson said. “We have almost 2,000 kids in this building. For us to have an established football program, it means the world to them.”
