Team Turned Family: Sandy Football Fosters Community

“No matter what you’re doing, give it 110%,” Sandy High School football coach Josh Dill tells his team. “Even if you make a mistake, make sure to give it your full effort.” Dill has coached right guard and defensive end Tanner Sedgwick for the last four years; that coaching recently came to a close after the Columbia Cup finals game took place Nov. 22. As Sedgwick prepared for his final football game, he reflected on his time spent playing for Sandy High School. 

Sedgwick began playing football in kindergarten; he attempted to play as a wide receiver and as a tight end, but he wasn’t succeeding. He says he didn’t start to thrive in the sport until he got older when “people started growing into their body types… we got put in positions that were more suited to us.” That was when Sedgwick was placed as a lineman and defensive end. “Once 

you’re in a position you’re actually good at, the sport becomes a whole lot more enjoyable,” Sedgwick said. 

Since starting his career in kindergarten, many new athletes have joined the Sandy Football Program. Several athletes, such as Caden McMahon and Teagan Turin, have played with Sedgwick all the way from flag football through senior year. Sedgwick deeply values the community he has formed, saying his favorite part of football is “being able to hang out with the family that I’ve grown since I was a little kid.” 

Sedgwick is a senior this year, so he aims to appreciate every moment he has with his team. At the end of the quarter-finals game, “it kind of hit me that it’s my senior year and it could end at any moment. This is the last time I get to spend on the field with these guys that I’ve been with my whole life,” Sedgwick said. This revelation helped Sedgwick to continue to bring energy and positivity, two of Sedgwick’s greatest strengths, through two more football games. 

When on the field, “I go into my own kind of zone; everything in my outside life kind of just goes away. Any kind of stress gets relieved, and I’m just able to focus,” Sedgwick said. Sedgwick also participates in Sandy High School wrestling and track, but football will always be unique in this way. 

Sandy’s Football program has taught Sedgwick more than just football and perseverance, it’s taught him how to be a good man, have accountability, and how to treat others. Sedgwick says that if he didn’t play football “[he] would probably be stuck up and try to blame things on other people.” Instead, he can “own up to mistakes that [he] made and actually grow from them.” He credits much of his personality and growth to Sandy Football. 

“Family, accountability, citizenship, and earning it,” are the key foundational values of Sandy Football. Sedgwick believes in those core values and tries to always base his life on them.  “Something that’s different about Sandy is that we own up to our mistakes, we pick each other up, and we grow from [our mistakes],” Sedgwick believes.

Overall, Sandy’s Football program fosters a sense of community and instills values like no other program does. Even when students end their time at Sandy High School, they will carry the values and teachings with them through the rest of their life.