The Skyline High School football team secured a victory against Highland High on September 10th after a severe thunderstorm warning issued by the National Weather Service for most of the Salt Lake Valley temporarily delayed their game.  

Around 7:10 PM, the National Weather Service announced that severe thunderstorms were around the Salt Lake Valley with wind speeds up to 60 miles per hour. When officials caught the news about the severe weather reports, they delayed the football game at Highland for the safety of the players and the crowd. Football players tend to play in harsh conditions if they players or the crowd are not at risk of getting hurt. Thunderstorms may be potentially dangerous due to the slim chance of lightning hitting someone. 

The warning was only temporary and lasted until 7:45 PM, therefore it could resume after that set time. Skyline High School won the game against Highland after the warning even though the conditions were harsher than usual. 

When asked if they were nervous about the game, Wide Receiver Austin Okerwa said pre-game, “I’m not worried; I just need to focus on getting hard momentum running from the get-go, but I’m not worried about anything.”  A similar sentiment was also shared by Quarterback Andrew Rasmussen.

 When asked what a wide receiver does for the game, he replied with, “I catch the ball… also play safety and play defence trying to stop the ball.”  When asked if it was a hard position, he replied with, “It’s pretty difficult, but you got to get the job done.”

Wide receiver is not the only important position in football; the Quarterback also plays a huge part in the team. The Quarterback on the Skyline team is Andrew Rasmussen. When asked about his position, he said “I play quarterback, I snap the ball, pass the ball, and hand the ball off.”  

Their positions are one of many in the game of football, and they all do different things for the team to help secure a victory. Something else to help secure a victory is knowing what kind of strategy the other team has and what type of players play.

When asked what advantages Skyline’s team has over Highland’s, Austin replied with, “They are a pretty big physical team but I think our team is smarter and faster.” For Austin, sometimes intelligence is better than being more physical — brains are better than brawns in summary. A common stereotype seen in media is the ‘dumb jock’.This stereotype is often a male who is portrayed as a bumbling buffoon who has such an obsession with sports they put academics aside. 

When asked what they would like to comment about whether the stereotype is true, Andrew Rasmussen replied with, “It’s not true, we’ve got a lot of smart guys, a lot of them are in the IB program and most of them are honor roll students.”  

A similar thought was shared by the wide receiver. Austin said, “A lot of people do not know us off the field, and only know us on the field.  We are very different people on and off the field.”

Having confidence and strategy for the game allowed them to secure the victory, but sometimes conditions got in the way of the game. During the game eyewitnesses saw players slip on the field during the game, causing some issues for the football teams. After a weather event, sometimes performances are affected in some form.

This match began with an unexpected surprise with the weather event, but the players had strategy along with confidence, which helped Skyline secure a victory against Highland.