The last time Andrew Wiederholt played in an 11-Man football game, he was in the sixth grade.
The details of that game have been lost to time, so his experience during practice this past week in preparation for Saturday’s Shrine Bowl All-Star football game has been a learning process.
“This is completely new to me, it really is,” Wiederholt said. “I don’t remember a thing from that game (in the sixth grade).
“This has definitely been a transition at times.”
Wiederholt, an All-Area selection as a senior at Hartford High School in 2006, is one of four 8-Man players that were selected to play in the 34th Shrine Bowl at Lewis Field in Hays this Saturday.
Wiederholt will be playing with the East squad, which has been practicing at Welch Stadium all week, and will be joined by Waverly’s Matt Coursen, a two-time Gazette All-Area player of the year and a first-team All-State pick in 2006.
Madison’s Jordan Stout is a member of the West squad, along with Kensington’s Grant Levin.
But while Wiederholt and Coursen are the only two 8-Man players on the 34-man East squad roster, each said there had been no distinction between 8-Man and 11-Man players in practice this week.
“Since we got out here, we’ve been a great team together, and you just feel like you’re part of an 11-man group,” said Wiederholt, who is practicing as a wing back on offense for the East. “The transition from 8-Man to 11-Man has been a lot easier with these great coaches, too.”
And that means there haven’t been any issues between the 8-Man and 11-Man players.
“It’s really cool that it hasn’t (been an issue),” Wiederholt said. “Everybody treats you the same. You’re still a football player, and that’s what were here to do — just to go out and play some football.”
In Coursen’s case, if any 8-Man player had something to prove, it could be him.
In helping Waverly to its second straight 8-Man State title this past season, Coursen rushed for 1,523 yards and 27 touchdowns, plus he had another 533 yards receiving and 12 more touchdown receptions.
But there were detractors along the way who said he wouldn’t produce the same numbers were he playing 11-Man football.
Coursen, however, said he didn’t care about the expectations or the doubts.
“I just look at it as they picked me to play, so I’m just going to play,” said Coursen, who will play at Emporia State this fall. “Being around these guys and playing 11-Man, I don’t really think about the 8-Man thing that much.”
Being an 8-Man player is a fact that has gone unnoticed by the East squad coaches as well, perhaps serving as an indicator that football players like Wiederholt and Coursen are just that — football players.
Seaman High School’s Blake Pierce, the head coach for the East squad, said Monday that it was obvious Coursen, who will see time at running back for the East squad, belonged with some of the top players in the state.
“He’s a great football player, and if you wouldn’t have told me he was an 8-Man guy, I would have never known,” Pierce said. “He’s one of those guys who stepped right in, and he was a star right from the beginning.
“He’s a great kid too. He’s intelligent, and has done everything we’ve asked of him.”
Perhaps the greater distinction for guys like Coursen and Wiederholt, along with Stout on the West squad, is that they make up three-fourths of the 8-Man players selected to this year’s game, and all three come from the same league — the Lyon County League.
“Knowing those guys as well as I do, we’re all just the kind of guys that want to go out and play the game,” Wiederholt said. “Eight-Man to 11-man, it’s all still football. We just want to go have fun with it.”