Football, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Trace McSorely
Favorite team: Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating Hatboro-Horsham my junior year
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Watching my left guard, Ethan Baritz, pancake my head coach in practice.
Music on playlist: Country music (Zach Bryan, Sam Barber, Morgan Wallen)
Future plans: I plan to go to college to study finance and potentially play football
Words to live by: Phillipians 4:13 … “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
One goal before turning 30: To be able to break 70 in golf.
One thing people don’t know about me: I am very interested in science.
By GORDON GLANTZ
If football is the ultimate team sport, then Wissahickon senior quarterback Nolan Pounds is the ultimate team player.
For Pounds, in his second season under center, there is truly no “I” in team. There’s hardly any “me” and a whole lot more “we.”
He’s been a key piece in the resurgence of Wissahickon’s football program in recent years and is coming off a 56-28 victory over Lower Merion this past Saturday in which he threw three touchdown passes.
Wissahickon currently rosters 83 players, with more than 20 being fellow seniors who share the same vision after having a taste of the postseason a year ago.
“We wanted to go undefeated,” said Pounds. “We lost Week 1 to Upper Dublin, but now we just want to win out and make a run and try and win the district and make a run at states,” Pounds said.
He is quick to point to the players around him - from the offensive linemen to the skill position players - that make his job easy.
“I definitely feel like I progressed as the season went along last year, but I didn’t feel like I was thrown into the fire too much,” he explained. “Two of the receivers last year (Jaden McLean, now at Kutztown, and Michael Bemis, now at Muhlenberg) were seniors, and we were always going to the field, just throwing and getting routes in. I feel like I had great chemistry with them. Being on the field with them felt like second nature.”
“This year, though, our receiving corps is so good. I think we have the best receiving corps in the area. The one receiver, Aidan Wescott, is in my grade. We have been throwing together the past five years. The other receiver is Zay Johnson. He just transferred here from Carroll. He’s a junior and is phenomenal. They make it really easy for me. We can also pound it out with running back Quasir Sampson.”
Natural Leader
Pounds is quick to explain that several fellow seniors share the leadership burden. However, being a returning starter at quarterback, all eyes are on him.
“We have a ton of great leaders on the team. It’s not all on me, but I feel comfortable stepping up as a leader,” said Pounds, who added that the team shares a strong belief in God. “I owe everything we have accomplished as a team and personally to God.”
Hitting the Books
In addition to being a leader on the field and the locker room, Pounds excels in the classroom.
While taking AP and honors classes, he carries a 4.1 GPA.
“He is a leader on the football field, but he is also a leader in the classroom,” said head coach Rory Graver.
While he has little to no time for many extracurricular activities, such as National Honor Society, Pounds was an officer in MiniThon.
Although the son of Bill and Joyce Pounds hasn’t ruled out playing football in college, he hasn’t ruled it in either.
“I believe he can play at the college level, and I know he has interest in that as well,” said Graver. “I know he went out this past summer and visited some schools and did some college showcase type deals. I think he is going to play out his senior year and see where it goes from there.”
Displaying maturity, Pounds is willing to block out the noise and reevaluate when the season ends.
“I want to go to the best school I can to study finance,” said Pounds, adding that he has mostly spoken with Division III schools, along with some at the Division-II level. “I’ll be deciding toward the end of the season, with a lot depending on how the season goes.”
Man for All Seasons
In this era of specialization, Pounds does it all.
Last year, for example, he played ice hockey for the school team as soon as football season ended.
In the spring, he gave up baseball and gave lacrosse a go.
He was spotted and recruited for the team by Dave Sowers, who took over the helm of the boys’ lacrosse program last year.
“I have been a high school football coach for 35-plus years, and I know the importance of putting football and multi-sport athletes on your lacrosse team,” said Sowers. “I watched Nolan play football last fall. As the new head lacrosse coach, I knew he was going to change the culture of the Wissahickon boys’ lacrosse program.
“I needed young men like Nolan.”
The reasons went beyond his athleticism.
“Nolan has tremendous integrity, work ethic and pure moxie,” Sowers said. “He is a true leader, on and off the field.”
Once he started playing at offensive midfield, Pounds was hooked on lacrosse.
“I played baseball my whole life,” he said. “This past spring was my first year playing and it was so much fun. A couple of friends played it. Coach Sowers, it was his first year coaching it for Wissahickon. He convinced me to come out and play. I don’t regret it. It was a great time.”
Carrying the Weight
All the while, and despite ice hockey games ending late on weeknights, Pounds remained a fixture at offseason lifting sessions.
“He is an old-school student-athlete, playing all three sports,” Graver said. “He has outstanding grades. He is a tough-nosed kid for sure.
“We start our offseason program in December, and we work out at 6 a.m. three times a week. In the three years I’ve been here, I can count on one hand how many workouts he has missed. He is there all the time. He is committed, and that’s with balancing a tough schedule.”
Then again, we are talking about the ultimate team player, and working out in the offseason is not an option for Pounds.
“You don’t really win football games in the season,” said Pounds. “It’s all really about how hard you work in the offseason. I loved being with the guys, working out. It doesn’t feel like a chore to me. I love doing it. I think that’s how most of our team feels, too.”
Honing his Craft
For Pounds, perfecting the art of being a quarterback goes beyond the weight room.
He has been a willing pupil of Ben Haire, even before he officially became part of the Wissahickon staff, working on the nuances of the position.
“As a player, he is an extremely hard worker,” said Graver. “He is probably one of the hardest working quarterbacks that I have been around. Since I was hired three years ago, he really has improved as a player.”
“He is highly competitive. He is really accurate with the football and he really makes great decisions.”
Graver, who spent 10 years at Pope John Paul II, has coached some outstanding quarterbacks and ranks Pounds high among them.
“He’s a pleasure to coach,” said Graver. “I have been fortunate to coach a handful of pretty good quarterbacks, and he is right there. He’s a true leader. He is an extension of our coaching staff on the field. He has been a real pleasure to be around.”
Overall, though, there is the team success that means so much to Pounds that rests with him.
Graver believes he is up to challenge.
“Each year, our goal is to take a step forward. Last season, we took a step forward, and Nolan was a large part of that,” the Trojans’ coach said. “This year, our goal is to raise the bar and continue to move the program in the right direction.
“He is a natural born leader and an outstanding student-athlete. He represents our program really well, both in the classroom and in the community.”
Support System
Whatever comes next, Pounds knows he did not get there alone.
The first shoutout goes to his parents.
“They have always supported me in whatever it was that I wanted to do, whether it was ice hockey or baseball or lacrosse or school,” said Pounds.
Another debt of gratitude goes to Graver.
“Ever since he came in, which was my sophomore year, he turned this program around,” said Pounds. “My freshman year, we were 3-7. His first year as the coach, we were 1-9. Last year, we were 6-4. This year, I hope we are even better than that. He is an amazing coach. Our whole team really wants to play for him. He really inspires us.”
In addition to Haire, Pounds wanted to thank coaches Varney Dassin and Eric Fields (quarterback coaches his freshman year).
Last, but not least, there are his senior teammates who have endured the good times and bad with him.
“I want to shout out to the entire senior class,” he said. “We have a really big class. I have seen the growth we have had since we were freshmen. It’s incredible. The way we have dedicated ourselves to the offseason program - the changes I’ve seen are astounding. I’m so grateful that we all kind of worked together the way we did. We are achieving something that is really great.”
“One of the things we always say is that we want to leave the program better than we found it. We want to mentor the younger guys and help them step into leadership roles.”
