by JOHN HOWLEY / sportingpumpkin.com
Leading Westfall to its first winning season in more than a decade helped Bryce Wickline earn his name on the Bill McGaffney Award as Pickaway County’s top senior football player.
The signal caller led the team to a 6-4 regular season, earning the Mustangs a spot in the playoffs.
“There are not a lot of kids who work as hard as he does and he’s a 4.0 student. He does all the right things to put himself in position to do this,” coach Logan Stepp said.
The six wins in 2023 equal the six wins Wickline got to be part of in his previous three seasons with the Mustangs.
“I just love the sport of football, so I think that was why I really stuck with it,” Wickline said. “Me and my buddies came out our freshman year and we only had like 20 kids freshman and sophomore year.”
In those two early years, the Mustangs went 4-11. Between Wickline’s sophomore and junior year, Stepp was hired to coach and needed to find a quarterback.
“I asked five or six kids to go to quarterback workouts – I didn’t know who was going to be the quarterback. I don’t know if he won the job through his technique – he won it through the mental aspect of it,” Stepp said. “I was able to ask him things that he knew the answers to without me coaching him yet. That was something I was very impressed with.
“When I knew that he was going to be a coachable kid and do things outside of just being here and the two-and-a-half hours we have him here – I knew he was going to be a very, very good quarterback.
“When I was asking him questions, not even football questions, … he would answer them right away. He knew the heartbeat of our team and that is something the quarterback has to know. He’s only gotten better at that.”
While the Mustangs were still learning how to win last year, Wickline led the county in passing as a junior with more than 2,000 yards and 16 touchdowns.
But with a full offseason under a new coach, Wickline helped his teammates take the next step.
“He has an ability to play hard and everybody sees it. Kids follow him, kids trust him and that’s something that makes a good quarterback,” Stepp said.
As a senior, Wickline again led the county as he threw for 2,389 yards and 24 touchdowns in the regular season, which earned him First Team All-SVC and First Team All-Southeast District honors.
The six wins is the most the Mustangs have had since 2012 and earning the playoff spot was the first time that had happened since 2013.
Wickline hopes the season his team had is the start of a new era for Mustangs football.
“We were told all season, that if we made it to the playoffs and started this whole thing, the senior class would be remembered,” Wickline said. “We wanted to start the spark and set it on fire for the next couple of years.”
Stepp said Wickline’s ability to work with and lead his teammates makes the McGaffney Award a team award as much as an individual one.
“There are five receivers who are a part of that, a running back, probably five, six, seven linemen who are part of that,” Stepp said. “He really values their passion and love. And he knows none of this would have happened if he didn’t have anybody else.”
Wickline agreed with that sentiment.
“I think I’m a pretty decent athlete,” Wickline said. “I don’t want to talk too good about myself because I had a good O-line, I had a really good running back in Joey Wright, great receivers – we had good chemistry. And we all worked together and did it as a group.”
That Wickline would excel in the sport of football isn’t a surprise as he’s a state qualifier in wrestling and a starter on the Westfall baseball team.
“I went to a wrestling meet and watched him wrestle. So, I knew he played hard,” Stepp said of seeing Wickline compete before he ever saw him on the football field. “And then I went to a baseball game and watched him catch. Those are two things that aren’t easy to do. That kind of laid the foundation.”
Wickline said he enjoys being a three-sport athlete.
“I get to stay in shape and hang around my buddies. I’m in the weight room all year round, really, so that helps me with everything,” Wickline said. “Wrestling really helps me with football because it’s a very tough, physical sport just like football. So that really helps me out.”
Time will tell if this season is the springboard to put Westfall football back at the top of the SVC, but Wickline hopes the younger kids see what he and his teammates were able to accomplish and can build on it.
“I really hope they can see what Westfall football is all about and that they can come in and put the work in like we did and grow this program to what we know it can be,” Wickline said.
“We have 18 eighth graders coming up – so we’re on the path to success. Having an award like this, and making the playoffs for the first time in 11 years, those are things that kids get to see outside of this program and say ‘I wish I was a part of this,’” Stepp said. “We’re on the right path to build that tradition.”
Wickline is the 13th Mustang to win the McGaffney Award.
McGaffney Award Winners
1985 — John Berry, Westfall
1986 — Sean White, Logan Elm
1987 — Shane Roese, Teays Valley
1988 — Bill Currence, Logan Elm
1989 — Lance Gibson, Westfall
1990 — Bill Davis, Westfall
1991 — Shawn Buescher, Westfall
1992 — Brian Dollison, Westfall
1993 — Greg Colburn, Westfall
1994 — Nate Hamman, Circleville
1995 — Billy Hamilton, Circleville
1996 — Lance Heath, Westfall
1997 — Brian Bigam, Circleville
1998 — Gavin Cupp, Logan Elm
1999 — Joe Lewis, Teays Valley
2000 — Matt Colopy, Logan Elm
2001 — Tyler Jenkins, Logan Elm
2002 — Aaron Palmer, Circleville
2003 — Brice Redman, Westfall
2004 — Wade Bartholomew, Westfall
2005 — Evan Blake, Logan Elm
2006 — Kevin Smith, Westfall
2007 — Drew Clanin, Circleville
2008 — D.J. Cain, Westfall
2009 — Johnnie Brown, Logan Elm
2010 — K.C. Hawkins, Circleville
2011 — Anthony Vagnier, Logan Elm
2012 — Trent Williamson, Westfall
2013 — David Burroughs, Circleville
2014 — Anthony Jones, Teays Valley
2015 — Drew Pennington, Teays Valley
2016 — Logan Holbert, Logan Elm
2017 — Brandon Coleman, Teays Valley
2018 — Taylor Robinson, Teays Valley
2019 — Tristan McDanel, Teays Valley
2020 — Conner Robinson, Logan Elm
2021 — Peyton Weiler, Teays Valley
2022 — Blayton Reid, Logan Elm
2023 — Bryce Wickline, Westfall
Award winners by school: Circleville (7), Logan Elm (11), Teays Valley (8), Westfall (13)
— Bill McGaffney was the longtime sports editor at the Circleville Herald.