The Montana 6-Man All-Star Football Game took place Friday, May 31st in Custer, Montana. The annual game draws together 18 standout athletes from across the state. This year, Big Sandy High School Senior Samuel Cox represented our community in the competition. Cox was all conference this year, and was invited to play along with Cooper Taylor, who was unable to play due to an ACL injury that he is recovering from.
Samuel described his experience at the game: "It was tons of fun. I had never met any of the other kids before, except for a couple of CGI kids, but they were all fun. We hung out. We did everything together. A lot of the kids were great in my squad. I'd say that we were the most bonded group out of everybody. We did almost everything together."
He explained that the players spent most of last week practicing together: "We did two-a-day practices on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We did more offensive and just learned what everybody could do and where everybody's good."
The game itself saw the players divided into Red and Blue teams, based on the players' qualities, rather than where they were from in the state. Samuel was placed on the Red team, who came out victorious. The final score of the All-Star Game was 60 to 24.
Cox will not be going on to play college football, so this game was his final time suiting up to play organized football. "It was sad, but everybody made it fun. It was fun to put pads on for the final time."
Dale Morey, Samuel's grandfather, remarked,"He played excellent, to tell you the truth.... being biased and all. He played several different positions. I could see that the passion was still there. He did a real good job. I am very proud. He did a wonderful job!"
Melanie Schwarzbach, the Big Sandy Athletics Director, explained a little about the All Star game: "They take all of the kids that were invited to play, and they split them into two teams." The event itself is put together by a group of coaches, who wanted to give students a chance to have fun playing a game they love with other outstanding student athletes. "There's a group of coaches or former coaches that have a love for the game. The coach heading up the event is Brandon Gunn Darrow, who is the coach at Highwood. He is also our six-man league president. He's kind of our "go to" guy for football. During the regular year, he's the one that works on the master schedule. He collects all of the scores for standings, and then he's our liaison with the High School Association."
According to Schwarzbach, the number of local players who represent Big Sandy at the All-Star Game "...varies from year to year. Last year, we had quite a few because we won the state championship. We had a lot of kids make all state, all conference."
Big Sandy's football coach, Tucker Taylor, commented on Sam's role in Big Sandy and his progress as a player since he first suited up as a freshman. "Sam Cox went down to play [at the All-Star Conference]. He was all conference for us on defense and on offense. As a fullback, where he played on offense and then on defense he was linebacker nose guard in the middle of the field." He's a good kid, who came a long way from when he was a freshman to now, where he's getting to have the opportunity to go play down in Custer at the All-Star game. I'm happy for him, and I think he'll do just fine.
Taylor went on to remark that Cooper Taylor, "would have been in there if he hadn't blown his ACL during the football season. So he's still coming back from that. Cooper was All-State and All-Conference, so he would have been a good one to be there. It sucks that his knee injury is keeping him out of it."
