Two KC high schools played the football game of the year. But after? A sweet moment
A high school senior stood on a football field, about 20 yards from chaos. As the sideline — his sideline — rushed a collection of teenagers onto the field, Mill Valley left tackle Gus Hawkins’ first instinct told him to take one step toward the hoopla.
Then his next instinct took over.
It was moments after Mill Valley scored a game-winning touchdown as time expired Friday, a quite thrilling way to earn yet another trip to the Kansas Class 5A state championship game. The celebration looked something like you’d probably imagine — kids sprinting, parents and coaches jumping in place, and an end-zone dog pile forming. Hawkins, though, turned his back on it all.
And turned two hands toward a player.
An opposing player, by the way, who lay on the turf in disappointment.
The party could wait.
“I just thought it would be respectful to tell him good job,” Hawkins said. “Because he did — he played a very good game.”
Hawkins is a bit of a beast on the field, in case you didn’t know, standing 6-foot-7 and ranked as the top recruit in the state by at least one publication. He’ll head to Kansas State next year on scholarship.
To help set up his quarterback’s game-winning touchdown scramble, he flattened a pass rusher. A pancake, they call that. Blue Valley Southwest senior Luke Davis found himself on the other end of that pancake during the play and subsequently lying on the field after it.
Until an assist from Hawkins helped him to his feet.
“During the game? Oh, I wanted to kill him. There’s no mercy on the field,” Hawkins said. “But when the game is over, then you can be a nice person.”
What better image of what high school sports should be?
Competitive as heck, sure.
But on the other side of it? Respect.
If you’ve attended high school postseason games, regardless of the sport, you know the emotions that so often follow — complete joy on one side and utter despair on the other. It’s the last time some will play with best friends. It’s the last time some will play at all. Hawkins, captured and posted on social media by Chris Duderstadt, bridged the two emotions into one shared moment.
Because, you see, Luke Davis has a story too. He played on the junior varsity team through his junior season at Blue Valley Southwest, which isn’t exactly the kind of thing you brag about to your classmates.
He actually thought about quitting in the offseason, before he elected an alternative: to bust his butt. Weightlifting. Technique training. Anything to land on varsity.
He did a little more than that. Davis earned a starting spot on the defensive line, and then he cashed that opportunity into the team-lead in sacks and tackles for loss.
How about that?
A “big life lesson,” he called it, and that too is what high school sports should be.
Unlike his counterpart in this exchange, the sports chapter of Davis’ story ends in high school. Blue Valley Southwest was playing for its first ever appearance in a state championship football game.
Davis was just playing for another week.
For one more game.
He doesn’t anticipate continuing with football in college. The programs never came calling for a 6-foot edge rusher. So flattened on the field as the clock showed triple zeroes and quarterback Daniel Blaine crossed the goal line, Davis knew: He’d probably just played the last competitive snap of his career.
That was the kid Hawkins picked up off the turf.
“I was just feeling a bunch of emotions,” Davis said. “And (Hawkins) just came up to me when I was on the ground, helped me up and kind of hugged it out.
“He was like, ‘You’re a hell of a player.’ And that, it really made me feel good about myself.”
In one of the biggest moments of his short career, one he helped create with his block on the back side, Hawkins made the smallest of gestures.
With a large imprint.
That’s all it took.
“Not at all surprising,” said his head coach at Mill Valley, Joel Applebee.
When I called Davis this week, I wondered if he’d even want to talk much about it. Blue Valley Southwest lost this matchup 63-0 a year ago. The encore was a bit more stirring, with both teams trading double-digit leads.
BV Southwest coach Anthony Orrick would describe it as a “blur.” His team actually had a two-score lead in the second half this time, only to let it slip away, literally on the last chance of the game. Davis would acknowledge the ending was pretty devastating.
But when he answered the question on this subject?
“Oh my goodness, it was awesome, bro,” Davis said. “He’s a crazy athlete. Just his frame and everything, it’s crazy. But he was giving me respect all game.”
That’s now his lasting memory of his final game.
Mill Valley is moving on, in the title game for the fifth straight season. It’s the end for BV Southwest, despite a mammoth one-year turnaround.
Two players on the opposites sides of all that found some empathy in the middle.
This story was originally published November 23, 2023 at 8:00 AM.