MIAMI – Back at Whitehouse High School in Texas, the football team had a motto: “Keep Swinging.”
The message was simple. It didn’t matter if a player was deep in offseason conditioning, the heat of a summer practice or trailing late in the fourth quarter ... just keep going, keep pushing, keep swinging.
As a symbol, the coaches bought a sledgehammer. Each week, a player would earn the honor of charging out of the locker room and onto the field carrying that sledgehammer.
Patrick Mahomes was a three-year starter at Whitehouse High – a safety as a sophomore, a gunslinging quarterback as a junior and senior.