A Building Year for Weston Football

Weston Today photos

Saturday night’s home opener for the Weston football Trojans may not have ended the way the coaches and players would have liked, but head coach David Drais sees a bigger picture.

Most of the non-league game against East Catholic was a defensive battle, scoreless until the Trojans found the end zone with less than eight minutes left on the clock. But two late big-play visitor scores reversed Weston’s fortunes, and the game ended 14-7 for East Catholic.

“It’s a building year,” said Coach Drais. “We have a very young team. The goal for this year is to really develop, to be competitive. It’s to get better.”

An array of photos from Saturday’s game …

“I have so much respect for players, because they’ve made a big decision. They’ve decided ‘I want to play football, I want to be pushed hard, and I want to practice hard, and I know we’re a young team and we’re going to have our challenges, but that’s okay.’”

Mr. Drais is in his fifth year with Weston, his third as head coach. “The original goal when I took over the program,” he said, “was to build it out over time.”

That building extends beyond the high school.

For the first time in years, Weston has a youth tackle football program, which launched this fall: a U-11 team for fifth and sixth-graders and a U-13 for seventh and eighth. The aim is to “teach a sport that can be pretty complicated” and “build a very proud program and culture around football in this town.”

The U teams practice on the same field as the high schoolers several days each week, which Coach Drais said is “just a really awesome cool experience” for both the high school athletes and the younger players. “My guys get a chance to be mentors,” he said, “and the younger guys aren’t just running around by themselves on a patch of grass.”

Mr. Drais wears his love of football on his sleeve. “I love every sport out there. But in my opinion, football is special,” he said.

“It is going to tax you and test you every day physically, mentally, and emotionally. You have a job to do among ten other players who also have a job to do. You could do a great job individually, but it could break down anyway. How do you handle that adversity, and how do you build resilience?”

“Or, you could be the one that didn’t do the job well. Okay, well, how do you bounce back from that?”