Ryan Roberts will forever remember the moment after the Carlisle game just two months ago.
His Franklin football team had rallied in the second half to score an emotional 35-34 victory, prompting a post-game celebration that resembled a league championship.
Ryan was in the middle of it, with chaos all around him. Hugs and handshakes were everywhere.
He received one hug that meant more than all the others, the one from his dad. "The emotion was so high," Ryan recalls. "It was Carlisle, the first game, a close game -- just everything."
His dad is Rodney Roberts, Franklin's head football coach the past eight seasons. Coach Roberts remembers the moment, too, and agrees it was special.
But he adds, "The whole year has been like that for me."
There's no denying it. To Ryan, his dad is not just any coach. And to Coach Roberts, Ryan is not just any player. To them, this season has been the type that movies are made of.
"Just yesterday he was little Ry-Ry, running around on the sidelines," Coach Roberts said. "Now look...
Now, Ryan is a senior captain on a Wildcat squad that looks primed to do a three-peat of winning the SWBL Buckeye League and advancing to the state playoffs.
Now, Ryan is a leader.Now, he's someone who is among the arsenal of offensive weapons the 'Cats fire at their opponents. He scored his first touchdown two weeks ago at Valley View.
"I'm the luckiest man there is right now," Coach Roberts said. "I get to coach a game I'm passionate about, and I get to share it with Ryan."
That special relationship will be celebrated Friday night when the 'Cats play host to Brookville on Senior Night. As Franklin's other talented seniors will be escorted across the field by their parents, so too will Ryan.
Coach Roberts experienced that as a Wildcat player in the fall of 1988. Since then, he has watched those events for 18 years as a coach, ever since Ryan was born. Friday night will be on a whole different level.
He will remember the years when Ryan played pee wee, when Coach Roberts would leave varsity practice to coach Ryan's teams. "I wouldn't have missed any of those days for the world," Coach Roberts said.
He will remember when Ryan fought back after an injury last season, when he re-joined the team in mid-season when all he could do was play JV and run the scout team during practice. "I was as proud of him for that as anything he has ever done," Coach Roberts said.
And he will remember the moments of this season, thankful it's not yet finished.
Ryan is enjoying himself, too. After all, it's the dream of all pee wee Wildcats to one day play in The Big Show.
Ironically, there was a time when Ryan would’ve wanted to be a Springboro Panther. When Coach Roberts was head coach over there, Ryan was on the sidelines and in the locker room all the time – hanging with guys like Jake and Josh Ballard, Sean Carnes and David Ghysels. “I loved those guys,” Ryan says.
“To this day, a lot of those guys send me texts asking me how Ryan is doing,” Coach Roberts says.
Coach Roberts came to Franklin when Ryan was in the fifth grade. Ryan’s older sister Bayleigh was a sophomore. It was a homecoming in every sense of the word.
Ryan wears No. 2 because that was the number Coach Roberts wore when he played for the University of Dayton. He would have worn No. 20, the number Coach Roberts wore as a Wildcat, but that number has since been retired in honor of Alan Wenglikowski.
Ryan likes the revenge factor this season has offered. This year's seniors were not successful in their younger years. "Everybody said we weren't going to ever be any good," Ryan remembers. That makes the success of this year's team all the sweeter. "We've showed them."
He looks forward to building on that the rest of the season.
Just how good this year's team remains to be seen. "It's like a book. I keep wanting to turn to the last few pages to see how it will end," Coach Roberts says. "But I also want to enjoy it for as long as I can."
It will at least last for two more weeks. The hope is that goes further than that.
Until then, Ryan has to be on the lookout. There will be cornerbacks wanting to cover him and safeties wanting to hit him.
And then when it's over, he'll have to be on the lookout for one more thing --a good thing.
The hug.
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| Once the season was over, another hug... |
