Thomas County Central just put the wrapping paper on arguably the best season in program history, running the table with a perfect 15-0 record and putting a bow on it with a convincing 49-28 win over Woodward Academy in the state championship.

But what I want to talk about is an unusual aspect of this special group of young men that at least in my experience sets them apart.

One of the rarest qualities to be found among teenagers is resilience. The reason is simple: because they are young, they don’t have enough emotional experience to be able to rise above difficulties when they show up. That issue is amplified for young athletes who constantly face adversity.

An example was the 2022 version of Central’s football team. Under first-year head coach Justin Rogers, a remarkable turnaround manifested from the 2021 season that included the worst loss in Yellow Jacket program history. The team won 12 games in a row, and met Roswell in the quarterfinals.

All looked good enough, as Central took what appeared to be a commanding 24-6 halftime lead, and even led 31-13 with just a few minutes left in the 3rd quarter. But suddenly and out of nowhere, the Yellow Jackets started making mistake after mistake, and the team just couldn’t figure out how to stop the bleeding. The result was a heartbreaking loss that ended the season.

They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and the players that returned to play for Central never got the bitter taste of the Roswell game out of their mouths. As a result they inextricably altered their mindset to be one of personal accountability and positivity.

As always happens through the course of a season, over and over again negative things happened during Central’s games. But over and over and over again, the Yellow Jackets never even blinked, individually and collectively living by the mantra of “hey, we’ve got this.”

Not once did I see a Central player point a finger at another player when something went sideways. Nope, the only finger pointing to be found was from players pointing fingers at themselves, assuming personal responsibility for whatever their contribution might have been to the issue.

Even for adults, being big enough to hold yourself accountable for a mistake is a very difficult thing to do. For teenagers, it’s pretty much impossible.

But to a young man, that is precisely what this group of teenagers did.

The ability to simply stay on top of whatever situation that might have arisen in a positive way, that kind of resiliency, is also a very rare attribute. But the more this season evolved, it was clear that these young men had been coached to the point of confidence literally oozing from them, their belief in what their coaches asked them to do unquestioned.

Let me share a story that illustrates what I’m talking about.

Leading 13-7 in the semifinal game against Marist, a very odd play happened late in the fourth quarter when a lateral from Central turned into a potentially disastrous turnover deep in Yellow Jacket territory. The balance of the outcome of the game hung in the balance, and the weight of the mistake hit like a freight train along the Central sideline, causing several coaches to fall to their knees in anguish.

Senior defensive lineman Ezekial Bogan shared last week that he and his compatriots on the Central defense noticed the crushed coaches. These players went to those coaches, lifted them up, and said “coach, not only are they not going to score, we’re going out there to get the ball back. We’ve got this.”

And you know what? That is precisely what those Yellow Jacket players did, and they secured the win in the process.

It is a very rare thing indeed when you see players themselves be a steadying force for any team, up to and including the coaches. But in a lifetime of watching football, this team represents the first time I’ve ever seen such exhibited by teenagers.

The reason for it was simple: they bought in 100% on the gameplan structured by their coaches, they played for each other, and each one did their job to the utmost of their ability while taking individual responsibility and accountability for the success of the team as a whole.

Trust me on this — that is not only rarified air, it’s almost unheard of.

Under the direction of Justin Rogers, Thomas County’s football program has something very special going on right now, going 27-1 over the last two seasons, and now state champions and completing only the second perfect season ever. With talented players waiting in the wings, the run of blue & gold success appears to just be getting started.

But it was those lessons of personal responsibility and accountability that led to stratospheric levels of confidence that then created a resiliency in this team that I’ve never witnessed before. Those are lessons that will pay huge dividends as these young men move into adulthood.

And for that, if for nothing else, makes this Yellow Jacket team arguably the best Thomas County and the state of Georgia has ever seen.