MERIDIAN — As Owyhee High School opened its doors to students for the first time this year, the football team is looking to start their program's legacy off on a high note with their first home game ever.
“It's really exciting, I haven’t slept a whole lot,” Blaser Sherman, the head football coach said.
The storm started the season off with an away loss to Centennial but is looking to turn things around when they play on their field for the first time against Capitol.
“There is a bunch of game day jitters and stuff like that going around, and there is a whole bunch of talk going around the school," Porter Grow, Owyhee senior said. "It is such a huge opportunity to see what we can do, and we have been working so hard.”
"I'm excited to see the stands full, and to feel the environment at home," coach Sherman said.
But starting a football program from scratch hasn't been easy. Their weight room isn't complete yet and they weren't able to practice on their field until a couple of weeks ago.
“It has been a whirlwind. We tried as best as we could to get creative and still have some sense of normalcy as we tried to prepare for this year," coach Sherman said. "Was it perfect? Not at all by any means, but it was better than sitting and doing nothing, and we are hoping the product will come as we continue to work on it."
The team used neighboring school facilities and did conditioning work outside.
"We don’t have everything handed to us quite yet, but we are more than willing to go work for what we need," Dylan Stamper, Owyhee senior said. "We are willing to go drive 30 minutes away to go work out and wake up at five in the morning. We are willing to do what needs to be done to win.
It's also a team made up of players from all over the Treasure Valley looking to make their mark in the 5A SIC.
"Everyone is coming from different backgrounds, whether they had to come here or they wanted to be here," Stamper said. "It is a joint community of people that just really want to make this thing special. We don’t want to just be another football team, we want to be the football team that everyone looks forward to."
But out of all the adversity they've faced, and the hard work of building a new program, coach Sherman said that the chemistry between the team is what has come easy.
"That is one of the things that has been really exciting for me, and something that I was worried about coming in," Sherman said. "It was something I thought was going to be a big challenge, trying to make them gel into one cohesive unit and that has been really exciting to watch happen between our kids because they clicked real quick."
While the program is brand new, the first-ever Storm football team is looking to start a legacy that will be known for years to come.
"It is a really cool opportunity," Stamper said. "It is one of the only things that at my age I can set a precedent for a long time, and I am just excited to see what kind of impact we can leave on this school going forward and see if there are any traditions we start."
