Matt Coursen gets up every Saturday at around 5:30 a.m. and heads to the local lumberyard in Waverly where he has worked for the last three years.
Getting a high school kid to do anything — let alone work — at 5:30 in the morning is nearly impossible.
Most high school students don’t even know 5:30 a.m. exists.
But what’s more impressive is that this high school senior goes to work every Saturday morning usually just a few hours after leading the Waverly Bulldogs on the football field every Friday night.
“That’s the hardest part,” Coursen says. “Waking up at 5:30 after a game, that’s tough sometimes.”
Just as Coursen “totes the lumber,” so to speak, at work each weekend, so it goes when he puts on the pads, as Coursen has helped lead the Bulldogs to a perfect 6-0 record this season as Waverly’s primary running back.
And what a running back he is.
The 5-foot-11, 165-pound Coursen has rushed for 565 yards in addition to 240 receiving yards so far this season, which are good numbers in eight-man football.
But even more eye-popping is how often this leather- and lumber-lugging gridder gets into the end zone.
He has accounted for 21 touchdowns through six games, and it hasn’t all been on the ground. Eleven TDs have come on rushes, six have come through the air, one came on an interception return, two were the result of punt returns and, for good measure, he has a touchdown pass to his credit as well.
“He’s our biggest breakaway threat offensively, by far,” Waverly coach Mike Hevel says. “He can make big plays receiving, returning kicks, running the ball or whatever. He’s just an explosive player, and you never know what might happen when he gets the ball. I don’t even know what he’s going to do most of the time, but it usually always positive.”
But here’s the crazy thing: Coursen rarely plays a full game.
The No. 1-ranked Waverly Bulldogs are so good — they are gunning for their second straight state title and are beating their opponents by an average score of 49-13 — that Coursen is usually on cruise control by the time the fourth quarter rolls around.
Naturally, he doesn’t talk much about himself. He’ll name off every other offensive player on the field before he’ll take credit for any of his success.
“My teammates have to get me through it,” he says. “I can’t do it on my own.”
Perhaps a better reason to like this do-it-all football star is that he is certainly more than a football player.
Coursen maintains an air of humility not often found in individuals that reach his level of success.
In addition to his job at the lumberyard, once a day, every day, he helps a man living near Waverly with chores around the house and takes care of the man’s dogs.
He’s always up before 6 a.m., usually to hit the weight room before he goes to school, where he has had one B and one C in his life — the rest of course being A’s — according to his father, Tim Coursen.
“To have him become the dedicated young man that he is, that’s just really neat,” Tim says. “He’s pretty mature for a kid his age.”
That’s why it’s such a shame that Coursen has received minimal attention in the way of college recruiters. An athlete of Matt’s ability, combined with his character, should make him a blue-chip recruit for any university.
Such is the life of playing eight-man football in Kansas.
Sure, there are the letters and calls from Holy Cross, a small college in Massachusetts, and the rumors that Ottawa University and even Pittsburg State are interested, but that’s about it.
When asked if the lack of attention is frustrating, Matt just shrugs and doesn’t blame anybody. He’s just going to wait for the opportunities to come.
“Hopefully, I’ll start to get some attention soon,” he says. “I’ll send out some tapes at the end of the season, and maybe some people will see something they like.”
In the meantime, he’ll go about his business on and off the football field.
One thing is for sure, Matt Coursen won’t have to work at that lumberyard for very much longer — not unless he wants to.
Players — or perhaps people — like him tend to go on to do great things, whether it involves athletics or not.