Football
Favorite athlete: AJ Brown
Favorite team: Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating Pennsbury my sophomore year
Funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: My friend was chasing a kid down from behind and grabbed his towel and threw it at him while he was scoring a touchdown.
Music on playlist: Rap, Pop
Future plans: Go to a 4-year college
Favorite motto: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take.”
One goal before turning 30: Visit 10 different countries
One thing people don’t know about me: I'm left-handed
By Mary Jane Souder
Payton Smolenak is a Neshaminy Redskin to his very core.
“The thing that makes Neshaminy unique – here’s a guy, his dad (Joe Smolenak) went to Neshaminy, he graduated from Neshaminy and he played football at Neshaminy under coach (Dick) Bedesem,” Neshaminy football coach Steve Wilmot said. “There’s a lot of people like that. It’s not unique to Payton.
“Payton has a history of Neshaminy football. He’s the type of kid - growing up he was at our football youth camps every single year. He gets to the high school, he plays for the ninth grade team, and before you know it, he’s working out every day.”
Payton is the very definition of a program kid, and with a father, two uncles and a grandfather who played football, it was in Payton’s blood.
“My parents said when I was a baby, I always had a football in my hand,” he said. “I always had one with me, no matter what. I just grew up with it pretty much.
“I loved it. Football helped me – if I was having trouble at school or something, I would be like, ‘Okay, I have football practice later. I have something to look forward to.’”
And Smolenak’s passion for the game has never changed, and although not a star, he’s a valued member of the team.
“In the offseason, he was there every single day and has a smile on his face and has been really positive throughout the whole year,” Wilmot said. “Payton is just so well-liked.”
Granted, there might be days when even a diehard like Smolenak would rather not face the grind of another workout, but that’s never more than a passing thought.
“Some days I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to do it,’ and I get there – I see my friends, I play football, and it’s just the best thing ever,” Smolenak said.
Last year, the Redskins were an uncharacteristic 2-10, but if it seems as though that would have been a season to forget for Smolenak and his teammates in a program that is accustomed to winning, guess again.
“I loved last year,” he said. “The team was so much fun. We took practice seriously, but in the locker room, in our free time, we joked around, we had so much fun.
“Good, bad, 10-0 or 0-10, once your guys start together, (that bond) just never stops.”
On Friday night when the Redskins host Central Bucks East, they will be dedicating the game to Payton’s mother, Kerry Smolenak, a breast cancer survivor who had her first bout with the disease when Payton was a freshman.
“It started the beginning of my freshman year,” said Payton, who a year earlier lost his grandmother to pancreatic cancer. “It was tough. When I first heard about it, I cried – I’ll keep it real.”
Kerry went through treatments and seemed to be doing well, but the cancer returned a year later, and she had a single mastectomy. Last year, she underwent a second mastectomy to remove her other breast.
“She was living good finally, and she went to the doctor’s and it was like you have to have the second one taken off – it was just out of nowhere,” Payton said. “That was the worst of it. If I could rate it, that was 90 percent worse than everything else.”
Kerry has come out on the other side of her ordeal with breast cancer and is doing well. She is an advocate for cancer awareness and purchased black socks with pink splashes that the Redskins will be wearing for Friday’s game. She will be speaking to the entire team on Thursday night.
“It’s amazing,” Payton said. “I’ll try not to shed a tear, but…
His voice trailed off.
“The football team is my family,” he said.
*****
Smolenak has been playing football as long as he can remember.
“I think my first year playing organized football – I was four or five,” he said. “I think it was a 60-pound team.”
As a youngster, Smolenak always played up a weight, a trend that changed when he was around 10 or 11.
“I just topped out and I always played (down) a weight from there,” he said.
Smolenak acknowledged that playing for Neshaminy’s freshman team helped shape his entire high school experience.
“Going from eighth grade to high school was scary because our class – for Neshaminy at least - was the first fifth grade class in the middle school,” he said. “Having to go through four years of middle school when everyone else went through three and having to go through four years of high school – it was tough.
“Football came around the beginning of freshman year, and I didn’t know anyone from Maple Point or Carl Sandburg. It was just me and a couple of kids from Poquessing that I was friends with, but as the year went along, I got to know all the kids from Maple Point and Sandburg, and most of them are my best friends today. Playing football gave me so much more to do with my life. I’m not just sitting around at home. When football isn’t around, I have my friends from football.”
Smolenak played jayvee his sophomore and part of his junior year until he began earning significant varsity minutes at linebacker and fullback. This year, the senior has seen some time at fullback but most of his action is on special teams.
He could be bitter and allow it to color his love for the sport. That hasn’t happened.
“At first, it’s hard to hear,” Smolenak said. “It’s your senior year, and you might not be playing as much as you’d hoped. Someone younger than you is playing that they think is better than you – it’s hard, but once you become friends with those kids, you just want the best from them. You want to become a role model for them.”
The senior says he has learned an important life lessons through the experience.
“Never expect anything to be handed to you,” Smolenak said. “I went from playing a lot last year to not playing as much but still playing. Yes, it sucked, but stuff happens. You have to get used to it, you’ve got to get over it and find a different way to contribute, and I’m trying to help the younger kids out as much as I can.”
Smolenak’s selfless approach is not lost on his coach.
“He’s just an all-around great team player,” Wilmot said. “He gives four or five kids that he lives by a ride to practice.
“Although we’re not winning every game that we want to win, the fact of the matter is – this is a great bunch of kids to coach because this senior class is really tight, and Payton is part of that.”
Although Smolenak does not plan to play football at the collegiate level, he hopes to stay close to sports, majoring in sports management. His dream job – doing ESPN analysis or compiling sports statistics, and don’t be surprised to see him on the sidelines at some point coaching a sport he loves.
“For the past two years, when Neshaminy had its youth camp for the little kids, I was one of the counselors, and that’s a lot of fun too – that is so much fun,” Smolenak said.
For now, he is enjoying every minute with his football family.
“It’s week eight now, and there’s only two more guaranteed games,” he said. “I’m trying to take it one day at a time, one step at a time.”
