Westwood High football coach Paul Hallion has been around the game for a long time in an array of positions from player on up. He has seen hundreds of injuries throughout his career, until this year he just hadn’t seen what has felt like a hundred injuries in one season.
Despite being banged up since before the preseason and will carry into the winter sports season, the Wolverines have soldiered on and have gotten significant contributions from players that barely registered as blips on the depth chart radar when practice opened in August.
The very first of what would be many to pay a visit to athletic trainer Paul Lilla was senior outside linebacker Tyler Schock, who suffered a broken bone in his wrist while sliding during an American Legion game for Westwood Post 330.
“It was our first setback in a season of setbacks,” said Hallion. “He was slated to start at outside linebacker all year. It was his injury why the sophomore (David) DeCenzo got to play.”
Despite it being a small bone, Schock had to spend 10 weeks in a cast, another two just getting it back to strength, causing him to miss the first three weeks of the season. While he could have checked out and reappeared as part of the team on Friday nights with his jersey on until he was ready, he chose to do as much as he could with the team. As the injuries piled up, others followed the lead of Schock and didn’t use an injury that would keep them out for a period of time as an excuse to miss practice.
“He knew he wasn’t going to be able to play until the third or fourth game, yet he came to all the doubles, did all the running, he did everything he could do – short of the hitting and using the wrist,” said Hallion. “In today’s society, it would have been very easy for a kid to say, ‘You know what, I’m not going to play for a while, let me miss a couple of practices a week,’ which he never did. His commitment to the team was huge.”
During games he would stick next to offensive coordinator Brad Pindell and ask questions and point out things he saw.
“He was almost coach-like on the sideline staying involved as much as he could, probably driven by the frustration of not being able to play but instead of being, ‘Woe is me, look I can’t play,’ he channeled his energy in a way to try to help the team.”
Other banged up teammates picked up on that commitment when they went down. There have been plenty of others, as eight different players have started at linebacker alone in the Wolverines 4-3 base defense because of injuries, and they picked up right were Schock left off -- on the sideline sticking it out and doing whatever they could before getting cleared to return.
“I feel like I did because I was up there running and doing everything I possibly could,” said Schock. “Cam Gulczynski and David DeCenzo both went down later in the season, they were working their butts off too. I’d see them working in the gym doing whatever they could do.”
All the hard work by a team that returned just three starters from a year ago has paid off as they head into Thanksgiving with a third-straight winning season already secured after a thrilling 20-13 victory over Medfield last Friday when Schock broke up a fourth-down pass near the 5-yard line to preserve the sixth win of the season, and first over the Warriors in his four years at the high school.
In a school where challenging for a Tri-Valley League title is almost a guarantee, being able to finish above .500 became the goal for the wounded Wolverines as Norton and Medway ran away from the rest of the league to battle it out for the top spot brought special meaning to Hallion, who enjoys his group of 12 seniors.
Schock’s return to the lineup in Week 4 against Ashland came a bit unexpectedly, but necessary as he filled in for a fallen comrade.
“Originally I wasn’t supposed to get in there, but P.J. Pender went down with a concussion and no one really knew who was to go in, so I just kind of ran out there,” said Schock, of his return against Ashland. “It just felt great to be back on the field.”
He had a grab for 19 yards in that contest, a 14-0 win, and two catches for 24 yards a week later in a heartbreaking 38-36 loss to Millis in triple overtime.
“The reason why he was put in when he was ready to go was because he never really allowed himself mentally to be out of it,” said Hallion, who handles the linebackers in addition to being the head coach. “Even when we were doing defensive individual (drills) for linebackers when he couldn’t play he’d be there for every drill, he’d being filling in where he could and he’d be listening to every bit of instruction that I gave.”
He has not seen much time on offense since Pender returned, in large part of because of junior Jordan MacPherson who stepped into the starting role Schock held as a junior. Even though he lost about half his time on the field, the senior, a member of the state championship baseball team, thinks it is the guy that has replaced him has been one of the biggest positive surprises during the season.
“(Jordan MacPherson) stepped right up and had a couple of amazing games,” said Schock, who started at wide receiver as a junior while helping out in the defensive backfield.
Even though he was there doing as much as he could, the fact that he couldn’t do everything left him feeling a bit separated.
“I was out there every single day watching,” said Schock. “I was watching everything, I wish I could have been out there with them. It was hard.”
When Thursday morning comes, Schock will be one of 12 seniors taking the field for one last time for the Wolverines and they will be looking to defeat Holliston for the 13th time in the last 15 years.
