Gooding’s “Brother in Arms” allows Mahomet-Seymour to take the field

Late summer usually means one thing for high school football players: Friday Night Lights.

While some school districts in the United States are playing, others are awaiting their moment to take the field. Football players in Illinois will have to wait until spring 2021.

But Mahomet-Seymour’s team is playing this fall in spirit along with their newfound “Brothers in Arms” at Gooding Senators in Idaho. 

Mahomet-Seymour’s head coach Jon Adkins said that concept came from his newfound friendship with Senators’ head coach Cameron Andersen.

For some, boredom came with the beginning of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic’s stay-at-home orders. Adkins logged onto an impromptu football training , where he found seven like-minded coaches in seven separate states, who shared information over the spring and summer months. 

“If we could ever find a positive light in this pandemic, certainly, for me, it’s been getting to know Coach Anderson.

“We’ve stayed in contact through text messages and then Marco Polo videos,” Adkins said. “Honestly, multiple times on a daily basis we talk football and we share information with one another. We’re growing the profession and growing each other and each other’s programs.”

When news came down from the Illinois High School Association that football season would begin in mid-February, Anderson reached out to Adkins. 

Anderson wanted his kids “to realize just how lucky they are” in getting to play fall football. He wanted to partner with the Mahomet-Seymour team, pairing each varsity team member up, exchanging contact information.

Adkins asked his players to answer a few questions for the Senator players. 

“I had them write a little kind of journal entry, so to speak, and answer three questions: What do they miss most about Friday night? What can they not wait again until Friday night? And then the third one was, something along the lines of, if you can’t play right now, what is one thing that you would say to someone who is playing?”

With that fuel, the Senators wrote the initials of their Mahomet-Seymour counterpart on their arms prior to the Aug. 28 game against Jerome High School.

The Bulldogs held a watch party as their “brothers” won the 2020 season opener 22-20.

“That sentimental value of somebody that really you haven’t met, and they’re 1,500 miles away,” Adkins said, “you kind of feel that connection with them. If nothing else, I’m just happy that these kids maybe made a lifelong friend.”

The Senators met up in their team huddle after the game to chant Bulldogs. The video of the moment was sent to Adkins and his team.

“It was awesome,” Adkins said. “They just let our kids know, ‘We’re thinking about you. That one was for you guys.’”

Mahomet-Seymour plans on returning the favor when they take the field in early March. Adkins said that instead of the player’s initials, the Senators’ jersey numbers will be on the player’s arm. 

In the meantime, though, the Bulldogs plan to carry their Senator teammate with them as they begin contact days on Sept. 8. 

“We’re excited to get back together, and have some sort of football,” Adkins said. “We’re going to lift in the mornings before school. And then we are going to practice on the field after school. They’re going to be exactly like our summer practices with no contact.”