School: Central Bucks East
Football, Track & Field
Favorite athlete: Danny Woodhead
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: In eighth grade, I scored two touchdowns in one of the muddiest games I’ve ever played in a game against Holland Middle School. The second touchdown came as the game winner at the end of the fourth quarter to preserve our undefeated season.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: My friend Bobby had to streak through the school auditorium after he lost a bet to my other friend Cason that Cason wouldn’t score a touchdown all season. Cason scored in the fourth quarter of the last game.
Music on iPod: The Kooks, Dave Matthews, Matt Easton, The Wombats, Ground Up, The Wonder Years
Future plans: Attend college, graduate with a degree in engineering and enjoy life.
Favorite motto/words to live by: “How hard can it be?”
One goal before turning 30: Work for myself
One thing people don’t know about me: I cried like a baby during Toy Story 3.
John Donnelly was looking for ‘a few good men’ when he took over the helm of the Central Bucks East football program.
The first-year coach didn’t have to look far.
“It was really imperative to find leadership to be examples of what we wanted our program to become in a short amount of time,” Donnelly said. “Nick Chilson is clearly one of those guys.
“He’s the epitome of the student-athlete. He’s heavily involved in the school. He’s a clever kid, and he’s well liked by the faculty.”
A member of the school’s governing body, Chilson was a natural choice for captain. Beyond the leadership he brought to the team, Chilson was on the field for just about every down for the Patriots this season.
“His work ethic is tremendous, and he was very unselfish,” Donnelly said. “He was on every special team except one. He was one of those guys who was willing to do anything and everything.
“We always talk about three phases of the football game and the importance of that, and Nick really epitomized that because he was part of it. I don’t think he ever left the field.”
Although he was not East’s primary ball carrier, Chilson averaged 7.3 yards a carry out of the backfield, and on defense, the senior linebacker had 50 tackles, good enough for third place on the team.
Still, it was the intangibles Chilson brought to the field that may have been his most important contribution.
“As an underclassman, I kind of left a lot of responsibility on the seniors, and I took a lot of stuff for granted and didn’t work as hard as I could have,” the senior captain said. “This year that definitely had to change.
“As a senior, other kids were leaving the responsibility on me. Our seniors did a great job of changing their mentality and stepping into that (leadership) role.”
Donnelly recounts the story of East’s pep rally before the Central Bucks West game and Chilson’s inspired speech.
“It was not your typical rah rah speech,” the Patriots’ coach said. “He touched on all the sports at East that did so well this past fall. He just did it in a way that really embodies what our administration wants, and that is for our kids to be involved.
“He did it in such an eloquent way. Everyone was fired up and inspired by it. It was not your typical pep rally football speech, and everybody really gravitated towards it. It was not surprising for Nick to pull something like that off because he’s just intelligent that way.”
The past season under Donnelly, according to Chilson, was a far cry from last year when the Patriots saw their head coach resign after three games.
“It was tough,” the senior captain said. “We always had this feeling that we were a better team than our record showed and that we showed on Friday nights.
“Obviously, some things went wrong with our coaching staff – our head coach quitting after three games was definitely unusual. The other coaches really stepped up. Mike Barainyak – who is at West this year – did a great job with the team. If anything, it definitely made us a close-knit group after that. It forced some bonds that will last for a long time.”
Donnelly brought immediate stability to East’s program, and the changes were apparent from the outset.
“Even the pace of the practices with coach Donnelly – everything was just on a higher level of expectation for us,” Chilson said. “He came in knowing we had talent on our team, and he expected to see that every day.
“It was definitely a change. What everyone was saying towards the end of the season is – wow, if we had had this consistent coaching for three years, what would we have been like? You never really know. We like to think we would have been a much better team. “
As it was, the Patriots finished 4-6, but know Chilson and his fellow seniors know they helped lay a foundation for a program that figures to be on the rise.
“I think this year also we were a better team than we got credit for,” Chilson said. “There were a few freshmen in the program as well as sophomores and juniors, and going into next year and having coach Donnelly and his coaching staff will definitely benefit them.”
Chilson has been competing in sports since he began playing community baseball and soccer as a youngster. In third grade, he added basketball to his list of sports, but he didn’t play football for the first time until he was in sixth grade.
“I had a lot of friends who played, and it’s always been my favorite sport to play around the neighborhood,” he said. “I was always interested in trying it out with the pads on. It was a lot of fun.
“I remember the first game – I had one tackle, but I just thought it was a blast. I remember it so well. I didn’t have a very good game, but I had a lot of fun.”
Chilson began his career playing running back and linebacker, and he still plays those two positions, although he is immensely versatile.
“Especially on the defensive side of the ball, he played a lot of positions for us,” Donnelly said.
When he was in seventh grade, Chilson joined the track team, and he continues to compete in track, focusing mainly on the 400-meter run and pole vaulting. He became a pole vaulter when he joined East’s squad as a sophomore.
“They said they didn’t have a lot of pole vaulters and would I like to try out,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Sure.’ It’s a blast. It’s one of the coolest sports I’ve ever been part of. I don’t know what it is, but it’s kind of exhilarating.
“I went to districts with the 4x400 relay last year, but pole vault is the sport that’s all on me as an individual, and that just had a cool quality for me.”
Competing in sports is just one small aspect of Chilson’s life. A member of the National Honor Society and National French Honor Society, the East senior is an excellent student with an affinity for math and science. He recently scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT test.
“I felt good the day of the test,” he said. “I answered every question, and coming out, I kind of knew – I thought I had a perfect score.”
Chilson – whose father is an environmental engineer - is planning to major in engineering, although he is uncertain exactly which field. One of the schools at the top of his list is Carnegie-Melon, which paid him a visit and is interested in his football talents as well.
“I still have to wait and see from a lot of schools,” Chilson said. “It’s a matter of where I get accepted and what offers I get financially.”
Chilson is also a member of the school’s Philosophy Club, and he has earned a part in the upcoming spring musical, Les Miserables. He admits he hasn’t been in a play since sixth grade, but he has participated in the annual ‘Mr. East,’ a parody show of a male beauty pageant, and performing comes naturally for a student-athlete who keeps his plate full.
“Fall can get pretty hectic,” Chilson said. “But I just kind of worked it out over the years that when you come home from football practice in the fall, there’s really no time to mess around basically. You have to get to your homework and whatever else you have to do.”
It’s a philosophy that has paid big dividends for a student-athlete who excels both on and off the field.
