After busy summer in the field, Payton Boxleitner looks forward to autumn nights on the field

Excuse Payton Boxleitner if his 2011 football season gets off to a touch of a slow start.

The Tekoa-Oakesdale/Rosalia senior has been preoccupied since Aug. 3 working the harvest. He’s driven a truck for a family friend the last three years, hauling grain.

His schedule since football practices started calls for him to rise at 5 a.m., get to practice by 5:30 and be there for three hours. Then it’s off to work by 9:30 until 8:30 in the evening.

“I enjoy it,” Boxleitner said.

With the wet spring, harvest got a later start than usual. And in the Whitman County communities that make up the team Boxleitner plays for, harvest is all important. So school has been moved back a few days to allow for a later harvest.

The 6-foot, 165-pound Boxleitner will start at wide receiver and free safety. The fastest player for the Nighthawks, he will be counted on heavily as they make the transition to a new coach and fill the holes by graduation.

“He’s going to be extremely important offensively and defensively,” first-year coach Caleb Madison said. “We’re building a defensive scheme around him. As far as a kid he is the face of the Nighthawks. He works hard. He worked harder than anybody in the weight room this summer. If we’re running lines he’s always first or fighting for first. You never have to tell him to go hard. He has a lot of heart and determination.”

So even if he’s a little fatigued from harvest, Madison knows what kind of effort to expect come Friday nights.

The Nighthawks committed themselves fervently to the weight room this summer and attended a team camp. Boxleitner expects to see a difference personally and in the team.

“I know I feel faster and stronger,” he said.

Boxleitner is thankful that he lives in an area that has afforded him an opportunity to experience many things including working the harvest. He wants to be a policeman, and that idea was birthed from doing ride alongs with a neighbor who is a Whitman Co. sheriff’s deputy.

First, though, is a football season full of hope – even if the Nighthawks finished fourth a year ago, well behind league champ Waitsburg-Prescott and runner-up DeSales.

1. Waitsburg-Prescott

2. DeSales

3. Tekoa-Oakesdale/Rosalia

4. Tri-Cities Prep

5. Dayton

6. Asotin