Proctor Seniors Excited for Final Year with Rails Football Team

The five seniors on their team is the smallest group in program history.

PROCTOR, Minn. – The Proctor football is halfway through their first week of fall practices.

The Rails will lean heavily on their seniors going into this upcoming season. The five seniors on their team is the smallest group in program history. But even with the added pressure, they are taking the challenge head on.

“That’s forced a lot of us to kind of step up and be more leaders than we maybe had been in the past. With the smaller group, we’re all trying to be leaders to work the younger kids in because we’ve got a lot of young kids, but not many older kids,” running back Nolan McLeod said.

“I like it. It’s kind of cool having a lot of kids look up to me. We want to do the best we can. We want to get wins and stuff. Obviously having a short amount of guys is hard to do that with. But hopefully, it will get younger guys ready and we can look forward to the future,” said offensive/defensive lineman Reven King.

Each year, the Rails come up with themed t-shirts and this year, the team is focusing on above the line and below the line behaviors.

“What we have is accept, encourage and inspire. Those are things that you can do to be above the line of behavior. And it’s not just on the field. It’s in the classroom. It’s out on the street. It’s wherever you are with your family. Then we talk about blame, complain and defend. That’s what people that are kind of lazy do. You blame somebody about why somebody got beat,” head coach Derek Parendo said.

Proctor will open their season Friday, September 2rd against Cloquet.