Only 41 seconds rolled off the clock before the Wildcat defense made a mental error. Senior corner Tony Berry busted the play by guarding the out route instead of guarding Farmington senior wide receiver Dawson Keaton, who ran a vertical, caught the ball and scored for Farmington on their second drive of the game. The Cardinals went up 7-0 with 11 minutes left in the first quarter.
“It was just an overall coverage bust,” Berry said. “I thought I had to help the out route, but I was supposed to have the vertical route.”
Despite the busted coverage and the points on the board for the opponent, defensive coordinator Julian Washington spoke to Berry about the play. Head coach Aaron Danenhauer discussed the previous year’s forfeit to Farmington and told the team to continue to fight, to not let the loss impact them mentally.
“At half, Coach Danenhauer talked to the defense about how their starting quarterback was going to be out for the rest of the game and how we can use that for our advantage because their other quarterback wasn’t as good as he was,” Berry said, “so we used that and shut them out for the rest of the game.”
Tackling the opponent is one thing; tackling the mental aspect of the sport is another. High school athletes deal with a lot of negativity due to social media, especially with Barstool accounts, which affects players, coaches, and families.
A Barstool is a social media account that is used on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. Students at various colleges and high schools manage accounts and post about athletes. Accounts highlight past indiscretions or edited photos to put athletes in a negative light. Oftentimes, the posts feature athletes doing something embarrassing or suggestive.
Barstool account managers are disrespectful or derogatory towards players to throw their game off. High school barstool accounts take shots against each other repeatedly, especially during the week before their teams face each other on the field.
“I knew I had to be careful about what I posted and the way we run the Har-Ber Barstool this year. It isn’t like how a lot of people run their Barstool,” the manager of the Har-Ber account said. “It’s something where we kind of want to respect other teams and not ruin a player’s life on another team, or post something that they wouldn’t want to be posted about them. So anything that we put out, I gauge at it very closely and determine if it should be put out there or not.”.
Some accounts do not hold back. The Farmington Barstool posted about a Har-Ber player’s sister and insulted some players as well. The police got involved, as a result.
Despite the attacks, the Wildcats’ offense rebounded prior to the half. With :11 on the clock, junior quarterback Bryce Owens threw a fade route to junior wide receiver Treyson Reith for a touchdown. The PAT squad gave the Wildcats the lead 22-21 over the Cardinals, and they never looked back. In the locker room, Coach Danenhauer gave a pre-game speech that encouraged his team to stay focused on the goals established the week prior, and he carried that same message into halftime.
“I don’t know what the score is going to be, but I know it’s going to be in our favor,” Coach Danenhauer said. “I have learned from these groups and y’all are going to fight to the bare minimum. Learning from mistakes, and we did that this week in practice.”
Both offense and defense received a pep talk.
“Defense, you communicate everything, you talk coverages, you don’t let anybody know coverage of the stunt that is called,” he said. “I do know this-it’s going to be a whole lot of Har-Ber and not a whole lot of Farmington.”
Winning the game takes some of the heat off of a school, though some accounts still are on the attack. Some schools’ accounts maintain a level of respect for other schools and players despite the score. Some accounts try to be funny. Unfortunately, negative posts can cause long-lasting effects.
“I handled the Farmington posts well even though nothing was said about me,” Berry said. “I just found it funny because of how it was said and how he [man in video] was smoking a cigar mid-video. Honestly, it helped the team to play harder and go win the game.”.
Coaches and parents are faced with the challenge of helping athletes stay mentally tough when it comes to social media.
“I just told Will White to stay calm, play confident, play fast and play Har-Ber football,” Coach Washington said. “Let everything else take care of itself.”
Coach Washington, who previously coached at Bentonville, took the brunt of the hate coming from the Bentonville Barstool leading up to conference game Sept. 26. Their account posted about their former coach.The posts were tagged ‘junewashington hate week’.
“Kids are gonna be kids,” he said. “They ain’t nothing to do for me. Personally, I see it kind of being funny and entertaining, but I always just find it stupid as well. I can care less about what kids say about me. I just want to go out there and play football and just go win games.”
These “kids” usually keep the identity of the barstool’s owner a secret, though they often have a few others who know who the owner is. Keeping the identity a secret protects the account holder from being targeted, a privilege the athletes do not share.
“I don’t think a Barstool should ruin a kid’s life,” the Har-Ber Barstool manager said. “If it’s legal to post, I will post it, but it won’t be anything crazy or anything. I will never use something on the barstool that would be taken from a private life or private conversations or text messages.”