MHS varsity football players honor Coach Lapthorn

Aybika Kamil | The Chronicle

The Mason High School (MHS) Varsity Football team faced many challenges this season. After the news of offensive line coach Bill Lapthorn’s passing, the players rallied together to honor their late coach throughout the season.

Lapthorn started coaching the MHS Varsity Football team in the 2018-2019 school year. The legacy that Lapthorn left for his players will be remembered through his compassion and hope for his team.  

MHS senior Liam Davidson played as an offensive lineman under Lapthorn for his entire high school career. He first met Lapthorn at the end of his eighth-grade year while recovering from a leg injury. Davidson recalled that his bond with Lapthorn started after he shared his own experience of working through an injury.

“He’s just a super upbeat, happy guy and he always likes cracking jokes with people,” Davidson said. “We connected on a personal level because he got injured in his eighth-grade year and he helped me to keep going through [my injury] and that was a big thing that I really enjoyed.”

As an MHS Physical Education teacher, Lapthorn created an environment for his players and students so they would feel comfortable talking to him about anything they needed. Davidson said that he and the other players are determined to carry on his legacy, regardless of the seniors having to turn in their jerseys at the end of the season.

“The way he coached is never forgotten and I [hope to] coach guys the way he coached me since he can’t do that anymore,” Davidson said. “He always said ‘control the controllables’ and to do your job before you try to help people with theirs because you can control what you do, but you can’t really control what other people do.”

This season the players added a special ‘BL’ sticker, for Bill Lapthorn, to the side of their helmets in his honor. Davidson said he sees those initials now as a reminder of Lapthorn’s trust and dedication to the team. 

“We have the BL sticker on the back of our helmets,” Davidson said. “We always take off our helmet to look at the sticker, and you just remember that you’re doing it for him whenever you mess up a play, times get tough or adversity hits.” 

Davidson said the team always prays for Lapthorn and his family before games. MHS senior Noah Dowers was a team captain for the Mason Comets this past season. Dowers said the team loves to tell Lapthorn they are still thinking about him through their prayers. When the team goes out on the field, they know that Lapthorn has their back and it is their turn to have his. 

“I pray a lot, and when I pray, [I say], ‘Hey Coach Lap, how you doing up there? I’m gonna go out on Friday, win or lose, I’m going to be an image of you’,” Dowers said. “[The sticker] being in the back definitely holds a special place and [gives you the] idea to keep him in the back of your mind if you ever need him because he’s a great person.”

As the football season comes to an end, the sticker has been a consistent reminder for the Comets to push through difficult games and look forward to their next time on the field. 

“It was a no-brainer to show some love and respect to Coach Lapthorn on our helmets, and it was because we knew he was with us every day in our hearts and in our minds,” Dowers said. “We keep him with us to know that we’re doing something bigger than ourselves here and that he’s always with us. We always [know] that when you feel like you hit rock bottom, there’s always somewhere to go up because Coach Lapthorn had always been a backbone for us.”

Dowers said he became close with MHS senior Cameron (CJ) Castner when they joined the interim football team for morning workouts in sixth grade, where they first got to know Lapthorn.

“Coach Lapthorn was always making little jokes and remarks to me and CJ to get us going and telling us we had to work as hard as [the other] guys,” Dowers said. “He could be completely serious and stern and ‘Yes sir, no sir,’ or he’d be cracking jokes until he had you on your knees laughing, so you really never knew what you got.”

Castner just finished his last season as a wide receiver and said his bond with Lapthorn sprung from their daily morning conversations. Castner said since his father is the head coach of the football team, he would see Lapthorn often and would always spark up a conversation.

“It was more of a friendship with [Lapthorn],” Castner said. “I always had great conversations with him, whether it’d be funny, meaningful or even sad conversations.” 

Castner said Lapthorn was always there for him. Lapthorn’s constant presence in Castner’s football career gave him the chance to help Castner navigate his personal life as well.

“[Lapthorn] told me, ‘I’m excited for your senior season, you’re gonna do good things,’ and that stuck with me,” Castner said. “I had a conversation with him about my grandma one time when she moved into our house, and we talked about how that would change my perspective on life.”

Castner said Lapthorn always found a way to make someone’s day. Whenever he passed by Lapthorn’s classroom, Castner always stopped to talk with him. He said Lapthorn took the time to talk to his players and students even if it was just a few seconds or minutes. 

“[Lapthorn] left a huge mark on our football program, not just because of who he was as a coach, but because who he was as a person,” Castner said. “He was like a friend to all our players, not just on the team but also the kids in the hallway, because I would see him talking to kids all the time and making jokes.”

Castner said he told the other seniors that he would play every game in Lapthorn’s memory. He challenged himself to put more effort into the sport – not only during games but also during practices in honor of his coach. 

“You can’t just go through the motions the whole week and then play for Coach Lap on Friday,” Castner said. “I would catch myself sometimes not practicing as hard as I could be or should have been and then I would think Coach Lap probably wouldn’t be too happy if he saw me warming up or practicing like this.”

Castner remembered Lapthorn in his own way before games and as the season went on, he said he found other ways to appreciate Lapthorn on the field.

“I would always write ‘Lap’ on my wrist to have him right there, and I did it every game so that kept a constant reminder that’ll stick with me and make me feel like he wasn’t forgotten,” Castner said. 

Despite this being a heavy season for the Comets, Dowers said that no matter the outcome of their record, his team always leaned on Lapthorn’s lessons. Dowers hopes that although he is leaving this program behind, the lessons Lapthorn has instilled in him and his teammates will live on.

“Our backbone is ‘What would Coach Lap say?’ and ‘What would he want us to do?’,” Dowers said. “He’s always going to be a big part of the team. We know the type of man he was and how he would want us to be, so [we try to] just live in [his] image.”