The Lost Season: Washington’s best high school football class won’t finish their careers together
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The Lost Season
A subscriber-exclusive, four-chapter series that looks back at the effects of the pandemic on the high school sports scene in the South Sound
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The Lost Season: Washington’s best high school football class won’t finish their careers together
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The Lost Season: Class of 2021 athletes struggle for exposure as recruiting offers dry up
The Lost Season: Pandemic robbed high school athletes of seasons, lifelong memories
This is the first chapter of ‘The Lost Season,’ a subscriber-exclusive, four-chapter series that looks back at the effects of the pandemic on the high school sports scene in the South Sound.
Colby Davies stood next to Ohio State signee Emeka Egbuka on a chilly January evening during a football practice at Steilacoom High School.
“We both knew what had to be said, but neither of us wanted to say it,” Davies said.
Davies, who watched Egbuka grow into one of the nation’s most explosive receivers and highly-coveted recruits during his three seasons at Steilacoom, broke the silence.
“I told him, ‘What’s best for you is to go, compete for a spot in spring ball right away,’” Davies said. “Ohio State is playing football. That’s guaranteed.”
This year’s senior class is the most talented collection of football talent the state of Washington has ever seen. But not all of them will be able to finish their high school careers together. The coronavirus pandemic pushed fall sports back — they’ll now start in February, pending progress on COVID metrics — forcing the state’s premier recruits to make a decision: Either stick around for a potential shortened high school football season with no state championship game in play, or enroll early in college and get on the field this spring, ahead of their freshman seasons.
Four-star and five-star recruits
Egbuka, considered a five-star recruit by 247sports.com, will head to Columbus this month and enroll early at Ohio State. He was The News Tribune’s 2019 All-Area player of the year. Lincoln High School’s Julien Simon, considered a four-star recruit, is already on campus at USC. Kennedy Catholic quarterback Sam Huard, a UW commit and five-star recruit, says he’s still planning to stick around for the high school season, but hasn’t closed the door on enrolling early at UW. Eastside Catholic’s J.T. Tuimoloau, a five-star recruit who is uncommitted, is considered the nation’s No. 1 prospect as a defensive end. He’s also planning to play his senior season.
In the South Sound, missing out on Egbuka and Simon’s final high school seasons stings. Simon was the heart and soul of Lincoln’s 2019 team, which was the first Tacoma Public School program to reach the state tournament semifinals since the Marcus Trufant-led Wilson team in 1998. The team’s run was a source of pride for Lincoln and for the city’s east and south sides. Moments after Lincoln lost to a star-studded Eastside Catholic team in the semifinals, Simon was already thinking about his senior season.
“It was a hard fought game,” he said. “We left everything that we had on the field. I had no regrets. In the midst of thinking about that, I was like, ‘I have one more shot. Let’s go do it and win the championship.’”
The pandemic erased that opportunity. For Lincoln coach Masaki Matsumoto, it also took away the chance to coach Simon one more time.
“It’s very disappointing, disheartening,” Matsumoto said. “We were expecting big things from him on the field. Off the field, he brings a lot leadership-wise.”
In October, long after Simon decided he’d enroll early at USC, he asked Matsumoto if he could speak at a virtual team meeting. Some of his teammates were struggling with their grades as they were having a difficult time adjusting to online learning. Some of them weren’t appearing at team meetings.
“He spoke to them, said a lot of good stuff,” Matsumoto said.
‘One of the greatest’
Lincoln has had plenty of talent go through the program over the years, including players like Lawyer Milloy, who went on to a 15-year career in the NFL after starring for UW in college. Simon will depart as one of the program’s best-ever players, as well. In his junior season, Simon had 55 tackles, five tackles for losses, two sacks, three quarterback hurries, four interceptions (two returned for touchdowns) and a fumble recovery. On offense, he caught 83 passes for 1,033 yards and 21 touchdowns. He had 1,474 all-purpose yards.
“He’ll go down as one of the greatest,” Matsumoto said. “Not just great on the field, but also, I don’t know one person in Tacoma that knows him that has anything bad to say about him.”
Lincoln has a promising crop of young, talented players on the rise in the program, including national recruits Jayden Wayne and Gabarri Johnson, as well as UW commit Chance Bogan. But Simon was poised to be an important mentor in the locker room this year.
“I was trying to prepare myself to be the veteran I had to be to lead them and show them the way,” he said. “Those good, talented players, they’re young. They haven’t been through the things that I’ve been through. I just wanted to help show them the way, show them how we do things, how I want them to continue that legacy.”
Human highlight reel
Egbuka’s loss will be felt by a Steilacoom team that reached the Class 2A state championship game a season ago, the deepest run by the program in school history. During his career, Egbuka has been a human highlight reel. In 2019, he racked up 1,607 receiving yards and 25 touchdowns on 83 receptions. He had 2,240 all-purpose yards and 35 total touchdowns. And on defense, Egbuka tallied eight interceptions at corner for the Sentinels. He was also the state’s 2019 Gatorade Player of the Year.
Davies knows Egbuka has ambitions of seeing the field for Ohio State as a true freshman and eventually playing in the NFL.
“That was where our talk went — if one of your primary goals is to get on the field as a freshman, you’re only taking away from that possibility if you stay here,” Davies said. “Spring football at the college level is super important for trying to earn a spot, leave a good impression on the coaches. I think for college football, they’re the most important practices. Guys compete and earn spots in the spring. By the time fall comes, you already have an idea of who your guys are. I think it’s imperative.”
But Egbuka also felt a deep love for Steilacoom and the Sentinels program. He grew up playing alongside his high school teammates since early elementary school days and he wanted to go out on top with them, together.
“It’s really disappointing,” Davies said. “It’s disappointing that we don’t get to strap it up and do it again. He doesn’t get to be with his teammates. I’m extremely disappointed and sad.”
Of all the football talent and stars that have graced high school football fields across Washington over the years, there has never been a class this talented. Never before have a group of players from Washington been so coveted by big-time college football programs across the country. But they won’t get to finish out their careers together.
“It’s very disappointing, but I try to look at it in an optimistic way,” Simon said. “Really, this whole thing, you can think of covid as the worst thing that could ever happen to you, or as one of the best things. It’s just what you make of it. I could just sit there thinking about how it’s the worst thing, losing bowl games, senior year.
“But I had more time to spend with my family, more time to work on my game outside. More time to myself, mental health, mental awareness. It depends how you look at it. I try to look at it as a positive perspective. We can’t control what happened to us. It happened. Control what you can control.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "The Lost Season: Washington’s best high school football class won’t finish their careers together."
