Growing up fast at ATM

EVERETT — Three years ago, Terry Ennis stood in front of the first football team in Archbishop Murphy High School history.

A quick scan of the group provided all he needed to know about the long task that lay ahead. They were green. Small. Bodies undefined. Minds free of all things football.

But they were eager. Eyes wide open. Hanging on the coach's every word. And Ennis asked them for something relatively simple.

Try.

That's all he asked. Just try.

"You're going to look first class and play first class," Ennis told the group of 25. "You're the only ones that will ever get that chance to be first. In this lifetime, you'll never regret trying something.

"What I'm saying is, give it a try."

It's amazing how prophetic the legend sounds three years later.

Incredible how a team that played against other schools' junior-varsity squads its first year would win the Northwest 1A League championship in only its third season.

Unexplainable how Archbishop Murphy would sweep through this year's Class 1A state playoffs with the same players who three years earlier stared with wide eyes at the legend, wondered just how much was possible and then exceeded expectations almost from the get-go.

This year's team was the first to beat Orcas Island. The first to beat La Conner. The first to make the state playoffs. The first to win a playoff game. The first to make it to the championship game.

The first at, well, everything.

Questions still remain: How did they do it? How did Ennis and the Wildcats surprise everyone — including themselves — this season? How in the world could something like this happen?

"It's all very humble, hard work," said Mike Wilson, Ennis' assistant coach, who followed him from Cascade, where they won a state title in 1991. "That's what we do best."

So let's start at the beginning.

"We were terrible," said Axel Wolff, the current quarterback. "Pretty much everyone didn't know how to play football. No one knew what a pigskin was. I didn't even know how to take a snap."

The first year was all about learning. Not learning defensive schemes. But first learning what a scheme was. Not learning offensive plays. But learning how to properly catch and throw.

The Wildcats from South Everett played against other schools' JV teams that year, and the seeds were planted for the current team's success.

"You'd better expect to be patient," Ennis said. "And recognize that it's not part of the school culture and it's not part of the kids' culture. So don't assume things that you might expect in a different situation."

The second year provided the first big shift. The Wildcats won their first varsity game and posted a winning record (6-3) in the first varsity season.

But the biggest dividends would come last summer, when Archbishop Murphy instituted an offseason weight-training program to boost camaraderie and muscles. And just as learning football was foreign at first, learning weight training proved just as difficult. Some players could barely bench the bar.

"I didn't know how to do any of that stuff," junior David Burdick said. "I remember last year against La Conner I'd get pushed back 5 yards or 10 yards every play. Now, I can hold my own."

Ennis and his staff, to their credit, just kept teaching, stressing fundamentals, burning the right way into their players' brains.

"We go over fundamentals all the time," junior Ben Waiss said. "And we have those down like the back of our hands."

Funny thing is, it worked more quickly than anybody ever thought it would. And after a season-opening loss to Tacoma Baptist came the host of firsts, and the ultimate goal suddenly became altogether possible. Players admit now that they never saw it coming. But tomorrow against powerhouse Royal at the Tacoma Dome, they'll have a chance to set one more first: the first state football title in school history.

"You do it long enough and the light goes on," Ennis said. "But you never know when that's going to be. It goes on at different times for different people."

In this case, sooner rather than later.

Greg Bishop: 206-464-3191 or gbishop@seattletimes.com.