The pioneers are in the midst of their best season since the program was restarted in 2012.
Success hasn’t come easy for Wayland Baptist football. The team hasn’t won more than four games in a season since 2012.
Nobody said it would be easy but the hardest part was getting everybody to buy in according to linebacker Alden Mann.
“In my opinion it’s getting people to stay, it’s not easy being part of a team that’s not winning many ball games we had to have a good core so the fact that we have a good core now is really important to our success.”
Mann is part of a group of seniors who have been through the tough seasons of past years. Coach Butch Henderson couldn’t say enough about the leadership on his team,
“you’re going to have the type of year that your seniors have and our seniors have really stepped up, they’ve bought in on the ideas that we asked them to do, they had guys before them that really worked and set a strong work ethic they’ve come in believing, believing that they would win.”
Which they have, surpassing last season’s win total of four with a come from behind victory over Southwestern Assemblies of God last week.
Coach Henderson says it’s about more than just the wins for these seniors,
“as hard as they’ve had to work to get it to this point, it’s real rewarding to be able to look back on your life and say I’ve worked that hard and now I’m able to enjoy the success of the work i put into it.”
Alden Mann who leads the team in total tackles with 69 summed up his four years at Wayland perfectly,
“the last couple years we had a lot of people tell us we couldn’t do this we couldn’t do that, and it’s just so nice to be able to prove some people wrong and it’s even better to prove some people right that believe in us.”
In the preseason the Pioneers were picked to finish fourth in the Central States Football League. With four conference games left, they’ll have a chance to prove some more people wrong.
