It’s All in the Family: Power Pirates Building a Brotherhood on the Court

“A lot of teams think that they’re family, but we’re actually family.” Those are the words of Power senior Peyton Hill. Usually, the word family is metaphorical - meaning they spend so much time together, they can’t help but look at one another as siblings. And when you add in the parental figure of a coach, you’ve have all the ingredients that technically make up a family. But for the Power Pirates, this isn’t a metaphor. “Basically our whole team is brothers, and managers, and our coaches are fathers,” freshman Spencer Lehnerz. “My middle step son is a senior, and then my son, he’s seven years old, he’s the manager,” said Head Coach Zack Vick. “In Power I’m pretty much related to half the school,” added senior Gaije Blackwell. In all, there are three sets of brothers on the team, along with a few cousins. Additionally, two of the coaches have kids on the roster. In his 8 years coaching the Pirates, Vick says he’s never had a team full of so many family members, but it’s been a vital part of building this team’s identity. “In the beginning of the year I didn’t even really think about it, I guess I didn’t even really notice it, and then after about the first or second week, you start to notice little things,” he said. “When one of them is struggling, the other one is there to pick them up. If there’s adversity, they’re always there backing each other up, and you really start to notice it, and the other kids kinda start to pick up on it, and it’s kinda contagious within the team, and it’s definitely helped us.” But of course, all families have their challenges. “It’s kinda tough sometimes to manage the home life with basketball, but both of us have done a really good job of it,” Hill said. He is Vick’s stepson, so he gets the added bonus of taking the game home with him. “It’s fun for the most part, besides when you start arguing at each other,” junior Jackson Widhalm said. His little brother, Nicholas is a sophomore on the team. With so many family ties, senior Gaije Blackwell, who has both a brother and some cousins on the team, said things can get a little competitive in the gym. “It gets heated sometimes at practice, just cause we’re all competitive, and we don’t like losing to our brothers,” he said. But it’s this competitive atmosphere that pushes the Pirate brotherhood to excel on the court. “We can compete and fight in practice, but at the end of the day, we’re teammates,” Spencer Lehnertz said. His older brother Ben is a junior. “It pushes me a lot, because I don’t want him to be better than me,” Jackson added. “We just know how each other plays, and we know exactly what the other person is gonna do,” said Peyton. Now that the District tournament is here, the Pirate’s season is on the line, but rest assured they will put their faith in the ones who will always have their back: their family. “We’re not all related, but we are all family though. Truly though, we’re all brothers. We look out for each other, which is just a cool feeling for us,” Jackson said. The Pirates set sail in District Thursday at 10:30 against Cascade.