His final one-on-one interview as a Lowell Red Arrow football player concluded, the reporters who had filled the hallway moments ago are gone. Now it was just Gabe Dean his thoughts, a few tears and waiting to walk with him back to the locker room was his friend, Uncle and coach Noel Dean.
Forty plus regular season wins, a conference championship, a quadren of district and regional championships, a state championship and a pair of near misses.
Quite a career by anyone’s standards, but for now the thoughts are painfully directed toward a 24-14 loss to Birmingham Brother Rice in the Division 2 state football championship. Yes, the loss hurt, but it’s apparent the reality of the game, the high school career’s finality has caught up to the senior quarterback.
“I didn’t think about this being the final game before, but afterwards, I’m s grateful and have learned so much in four years of playing football at Lowell,’ Gabe Dean explained. “I’m so proud of my senior class and just happy for the opportunity.”
Opportunity as in community service (Pink Arrow Project), playing for a stalwart, classy program, being coached by one of the state’s finest, and his Uncle while playing a game he loves with a group of players he respects and loves even more.
“I couldn’t ask for more. It’s disappointing now, but I proud of my team and the seniors,” Dean said. “Being the end for me here at Lowell makes this hard.”
Dean leaves behind a standard for others to look up to, to measure themselves by, including his a eight-grade brother Max, and his cousins Kanon and Zeth.
But with no regrets the Lowell QB will move on. “I’ll take a week off and then start preparing for the wrestling season.,” he said. A sport that will eventually lead him to Cornell in the fall of 2012 where a wrestling scholarship awaits him..