The Lexington High School Football team has appointed a new head coach, Shane Wilson, a U.S. History teacher at LHS. Wilson was notified of his head coach position shortly before the season began in early August. 

“The players are getting to know me, and I’m getting to know the players. Getting hired two weeks before the season, I didn’t know anyone. It was important to me to get to know my players as people,” Wilson said.

With COVID-19 restrictions still in place, facilitating team bonding proved to be a challenge. 

“They couldn’t use the locker room, ride the bus, team dinners were canceled and couldn’t find a host to do them. Those activities are how you build connections. Practice is practice, but those activities bring the team together,” Wilson said.

Wilson emphasized that each player’s accountability and the team’s unity would be critical to overcoming these obstacles. 

“Football is a unique sport, in that only one guy carries the ball and ten others get very little recognition, but they have to do the job. We emphasize ‘we’ over ‘me’,” Wilson said. 

Aske Norhave, a defensive lineman on the team and a junior at LHS, shared how the team has incorporated Wilson’s approach into their training. 

“Our team works when we are able to trust that everyone does their job. In the morning we have conditioning together and after the game we do film. There is a time commitment, but we are all in this together. When someone messes up it’s on all of us. We just got to get it back together,” Norhave said.

Wilson also said that the team captains, Aidan Lynch, Alex Exposito, and Justin Yates, have contributed to the team’s growth both on the field and off. 

“Captains led from the front since the get go. They are in charge of communication and I’ve been pleased with their leadership. One example is Aidan Lynch who has a torn ACL so he can’t play, but he’s been helping with the younger guys. Aidan saw a place where he could help out without me even telling him, now that’s leadership,” Wilson said.

 Over the course of the season, Wilson said the team successfully worked together, continuing to strive for better results. 

“It’s been a chaotic year, but they’ve stayed together and that’s not easy,” Wilson said.