Jaguars don’t walk

Chapter 1

The streets of western Shawnee are quiet at 6 a.m. as the June sun peaks out over the eastern horizon. Nary a car moves. Most walkers haven’t made their way out yet to take advantage of the cool temperatures. The only sounds are those of birds chirping.

The stillness of the moment doesn’t last. Slowly, cars, SUV, and trucks pull into the Mill Valley High School parking lot as teen-aged football players report for weightlifting and conditioning.

For the first time in five years, Mill Valley isn’t the defending Kansas Class 5A state football champion. That doesn’t sit well with anyone. When asked what their goal is for the 2025 season, to a man, from coach, senior and freshman, the answer is the same: a state championship.

Their first game is three months away, but for this team, the season is already in full swing. Soon the massive weight room is filled with sounds of clanking of weights, shouts of encouragement, and hip-hop and heavy metal favorites blaring through the speakers.

“Weights and conditioning is everything,” said Mill Valley head coach Joel Applebee. “They’ve got to keep in shape and be ready for the season.”

Summer is also a time for learning. The upperclassmen know this. It’s been drilled into them for years. But for the freshman – they’re still learning the Mill Valley way. Although the freshman started working out as a team the first week of June, June 6 is their first time at weights. 

Their first lesson comes early – Jaguars don’t walk.

…..

To acclimatize them to high school football, the freshmen do a lot of things on their own. While the upperclassmen are lifting, the freshmen are on the field running. When it comes time to switch you could see the difference between the newbies and the old timers: While the veterans burst out of the weight room in a cloud of “hell, yeahs” and “let’s go,” the youngsters walked in tentatively. 

But as they will soon learn, that’s not the Mill Valley way. 

“We want a sense of urgency,” said Dustin Ester, assistant freshman coach. “That’s something we do in every drill that we have. There’s always a sense of urgency, making sure that they are always ready to go no matter what happens.”

Freshman head coach Dean Zaldivar knows that his job isn’t to win games, it’s to prepare the freshman to take that next step to the varsity level. 

“If we don’t win any of our games, that’s ok as long as we prepare them properly for next year,” he said. 

To begin to teach this expectation, the freshman who walked in so slowly earlier were kicked out and told to come back in with a better energy. 

“We have a standard here that they need to understand, as opposed to the junior high standard. It’s different here,” Zaldivar said. “We point out the leaders on the varsity side and say, ‘that’s how you do it.’”

That message was echoed on June 11 as the Jaguars were practicing. In breaks between drills, Coach Applebee repeatedly shouted, “Don’t walk anywhere. Don’t walk anywhere.”

“Anytime between the white (lines of the playing field) we shouldn’t walk,” Applebee said. “We have to hustle places, and have a sense of urgency. That’s what that’s really all about.”

While the varsity players practiced on the main field, the freshman took to the soccer field. After practice, coach Zaldivar stressed to them that the kids needed to show more intensity. 

Assistant freshman coach Derrion Brooks suspects freshmen are afraid to hurt each other.

“The kids were just trying to get a feel for it,” he said. “As freshmen, it was only our second day in pads. They’re still trying to figure each other out. That’s the challenge. You feel like you don’t want to hurt your teammate or whatever the case may be. They have got to know that helping this guy may mean beating up on him a little bit to help him get better.”

……

Freshmen are a true mixed bag. You’ve got guys that look like they could be doing shaving commercials, and others that look like they’re Hobbits. It doesn’t matter to the freshman coaches. Everyone is treated the same, because you never know, that Hobbit could grow into a super star. 

Freshman Andrew Noon is a big guy. Not Jabba the Hutt big or Arnold Schwarzenegger ripped, but a big, solid guy. At 5’11” and 225, he’s the perfect size for the offensive or defensive line. He’s also relatively new to competitive football. Noon grew up in Florida. He liked to watch the Miami Dolphins. His favorite player was Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald. 

In 2020 Noon’s family moved to western Shawnee. When he entered the seventh grade he joined the Monticello Trails football team and got his first taste of the physicality of the sport. 

He realized right away that he had work to do. 

“My stance and my footwork weren’t the best but I got by because I was a bigger person compared to everybody else,” he said.

As he makes the jump from middle to high school, Noon realizes that he’s not always going to be the biggest kid on the field. 

“There are people bigger than me. I know I won’t always be the bigger kid anymore and that’s going to make me work harder and get better at what I need to do,” he said. 

Another freshman, Gabe Howard, hopes to be the starting quarterback for his grade’s team. At 6 feet and 155 pounds, and boyish good looks that surely makes the girls look twice, he certainly looks the part. 

Howard has been part of the Junior Jaguar program since he was in the second grade. Last year, he helped Mill Creek Middle School to an undefeated season and the Kaw Valley League Championship.

Early in his career as a Junior Jaguar, Howard played quarterback, running back and wide receiver. In the fourth grade, his coaches determined that his future was at quarterback.

As a quarterback, Howard realizes that he’s expected to be a leader. It’s something he’s embraced. 

“I’m loud. I’m confident. I always try to help out and make sure everyone’s putting in a full effort so that when the season comes, we can win all our games,” he said.

Through the first couple of weeks of the summer Howard has tried to soak up all he can by watching and modeling his game off of Holden Applebee — the presumed starting quarterback for this year’s Mill Valley varsity team.

“I’m following and learning from him because he’s in the spot I want to be someday,” Howard said. “I just watch him and watch his footwork and see what I can improve on and be more like him everyday.”

Back to Coach Zaldivar. After two weeks of conditioning and practice, he likes what he sees out of the freshman team. 

“We have quality kids and they’re working hard,” he said. “They’re going to make mistakes and that’s ok. We need to learn from those mistakes and move on. It’s the effort that we’re looking at right now and that’s what we’re evaluating.”