L et’s go ahead and address the ele- phant in the room right away, and it stands about 6 feet, 2 inches tall, and tips the scales at approximately 225 pounds. The elephant has a name, too: Will Haw- thorne. Perhaps it rings a bell? Hit pause for a moment. Yes, this season is about these players and these coaches, and we’ll cover that in great detail in just a few short paragraphs. But to know where you’re going, you also must first know where you’ve pre- viously been. Gilbert head football coach Graham Lundt gets it. He knows he’ll be asked about the de- parture of Hawthorne to graduation ad nau- seam prior to the opening kickoff of the 2025 season against Carroll on Friday, Aug. 29. When you previously coached the Gatorade Player of the Year and a four-star recruit who now plays collegiately at Iowa State, it goes with the territory. Hawthorne was special. Generational. And his former teammates are proud of the things they all accomplished together, namely last season’s Class 4A district title, journey to the state playoffs quarterfinals, and a 9-2 overall record. “The guys all know that Will is special, and they also know that people are going to ask the question about this year without him,” Lundt said. “But this year’s senior class, having con- versations with that group gives me a whole lot of confidence in our team, our program, and those guys as leaders. “Everybody wants to know how we’re going to do it without Will? Well, we’re going to put 11 players on the field, we’re going to play, and
we’re going to work our butts off. And we’re not going to worry about the noise on the outside of the room, only the noise on the inside. And the guys all also know that Will might be the person most excited for the success of this group. He led well and brought others along, and genuinely wants to see the success in others.” Hawthorne’s ability to dominate on both sides of the ball was on display throughout the 2024 season when he rushed for 2,263 yards and 28 touchdowns, and also amassed 44 tackles, in- cluding 10 for loss. He was a consensus first- team all-state player, as well as a Navy All-American Bowl participant and finalist for the organization’s National Player of the Year award. He was the guys. The alpha. It’s as simple as that. And who will be the Tigers’ alpha in 2025? Ah, and now we’ve switched gears. “The success we’ve had these last two years happened because of a lot of different pieces,” Lundt, who enters his sixth year as the pro- gram’s leader, said. “But each year the culture has to be reset. Last year, Will was the tip of that spear. I can’t tell you who that one person is going to be this year, but that’s the fun part. Trying to find out what is the best recipe for success is fun.” After a stretch in which it went 1-17 during the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Gilbert resur- rected itself by going 15-5 over the past two seasons. Lundt is proud of the turnaround, but he’s also well aware of how razor thin that mar- gin for error has been. If you subtract winless Des Moines Hoover from the equation over the past two campaigns, the Tigers have played 18 games and 16 of them have hovered around a
16 GAME ON | FALL 2025
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