From Deseret News archives:
High school football: 'Family' approach literally applied at Cottonwood
It wasn't just the lush environment or the tougher competition that was different. Perhaps the biggest change came in not seeing a few familiar faces that dotted his teams from the little league level and up.
"It was weird out there, not seeing my cousins," Hosea said.
It's a popular turn of phrase for many high school football teams to express a newfound sense of unity by describing themselves as a "family" on the eve of a brand new season. For Cottonwood, however, that concept has a much more literal application.
Several players on the Colts roster are indeed blood relatives. At times, Friday nights can be something akin to a family reunion. Hosea said that the stands would fill up with more than 50 of his cousins, aunts and uncles for a typical game.
Such a support system is evident on the field and the sidelines as well where more than a dozen players and assistant coaches count themselves as family.
"It just makes me feel better playing with people I know more," said Colts running back Isi Sofele, a cousin of Hosea's. "It's exciting playing with them."
Playing with family leads to plenty of friendly rivalries on and off the field. Sofele and Hosea, for example, line up on opposite sides of the ball in practice. It becomes a situation where one cousin has their performance gauged on how well they perform against the other.
Bragging rights go back and forth with a lot of fluidity.
"It's a pretty good matchup," Hosea said. "Sometimes he runs me over. Sometimes I stick him. It goes both ways."
Familial bonds at Cottonwood have grown into building blocks for developing a wider sense of team unity this season. Even those players who have no blood relation start to feel like adopted cousins with the amount of time the team spends together on and off the field.
It's the kind of closeness that few players on the team have ever experienced at any other level of football.
"The only thing different between us is a few last names," quarterback Steve Romero said.
Colts coach Cecil Thomas said that the collective bond between his players has made it easier to get them to trust one another. Such a step will become increasingly vital, he said, for the team's hopes of being successful this season.
"It's huge," Thomas said. "If you're not together, you're going to fall apart at the seams. This way, everyone is held accountable for each other."
Region 6 projections (Preseason rankings are based on coaches' votes)
