OH, MAMMY!
Conversely, Williams felt lucky to have his coaches and teammates.
“It’s nice to be a junior and win this award, it does a lot for my confidence,” he said. “It’s a great honor, but I see this achievement not as a personal award. It’s an achievement for the program for all we’ve been through. It’s not just me out there running the ball, it’s the blocking, and all the adversity we’ve been through.”
A lesser known but equally impressive fact about Williams was then revealed by Lordi.
“He’s an artist,” the coach said. “He designed our Pink Out t-shirts this year. He restructured the design for our Shades Club. He enjoys being in ceramics classes. It’s not too often you have somebody who’s as aggressive as a football player on the field and who’s that artistic off the field.”
And while Williams shares the credit for his football success, he’s not quite as humble concerning his artistic talents.
“I do it all,” he said with a grin. “I can paint, I can draw. It’s just been a talent for me since I was little. I was always better than other kids at drawing, The Hun School’s Josh Henderson, left, and Caedan Wallace, right, hold their awards for Prep Player and Prep Lineman of the Year at the 12th Man TD Club dinner at Massimo’s Restaurant in Robbinsville on Tuesday.
or whatever. So over the years I just have a passion for it. I take art classes. I draw a lot of portraits of people with charcoal. I just started to paint, and it’s coming real easy for me.”
He makes it look pretty easy on the field as well, although his carries were limited early in the year. The ND coaches knew teams would key on Williams and decided to give Coleon more carries to start the year. After three games they went back to their workhorse, needing a downhill runner, and the brothers became true twin terrors.
“That sucked, I’m not gonna lie,” said Williams. “Being the star for two years and then my brother got most of the touches. But after the West Windsor game, me and Col started counter-punching ever since and it was great.”
While Williams praised his line, one guy he did not have blocking for him was Allex, who became the second Bulldog to win the Falzone Award since its inception in 1998. A lifelong lineman, he finally got to feel the pigskin just before his career ended.
“It means a lot of the hard work I put in in the weight
room is paying off,” Allex said of the award. “I’ve been a lineman all my life. The first time I ever touched the football in a game was my pick-six in our final game. It was my first time catching the ball ever. It was unreal.”
Allex said he had constantly bugged the coaches to put a play in for him, and eventually decided he had to do it on his own on defense. It didn’t surprise coach Dave Caldwell.
“Pat is a guy that always reaches his goals,” Caldwell said. “Pat has been the foundation of our offensive and defensive lines for two years. He doesn’t come off the field. I know a lot of linemen in general go one way, Pat had to go both ways for us because of his attitude and energy he brought to the field. He played smart, played hard, everything we ask of a football player.”
On the prep side of things, Hun swept both the big awards with a pair of Mercer County residents. Wallace is from Robbinsville and Henderson from Pennington.
The North Carolina-bound Henderson — who says he will honor his commit despite the Tar Heels coaching change — was the MAPL Co-Offensive Player of the Year after starring at strong safety, rushing for 833 yards and catching 10 passes for 162 yards and nine touchdowns.
“Josh came in the same time I did,” coach Todd Smith said. “I remember watching him play some Pop Warner games at Hopewell and I remember his parents came in to talk to me about him coming to Hun, and I was excited about that. It’s been a happy marriage for four years.”
Henderson agreed, saying, “I couldn’t have asked for much more. Looking back on it, it exceeded all our expectations. We were aware of the hype about Hun that people go to big schools. Being there, it gave me the big picture of what it’s all about.”
Like Williams, Henderson deflected credit for his award.
“It just means that this season has paid off,” he said. “This award is not for me, it reflects my teammates, my family, my coach. If I didn’t have all of them with me it wouldn’t have happened. It’s just an overall reminder of how hard we worked together.”
Part of that work came from Wallace, who is bound for Penn State.
“Caedan wasn’t a finished product when we got him,” Smith said. “He just kept getting better and better to the point he’s a national elite kid by the end of his career. As coaches we can point kids in the right direction, but if they don’t have an inner-drive or burn to take that next step it’s never gonna work. Caedan had that.”
Wallace called his award “a great way to bring my high school career to the end.”
“From the first day of practice I knew I was in for a lot of hard work coming in with other great players already,” he said. “It was kind of a shock when I first got there.”
A shock that wore off very quickly, replaced by a great career.
Follow Rich Fisher on twitter @fish4scores