Taft's football team is going to lose one of its most valuable members to graduation in the spring -- and it's not the quarterback, running back or middle linebacker.
Rather, it's been someone who has been just as important to the squad: team manager Anna Czekaj.
"Her level of commitment is much higher than some of my players," said Taft head coach Matthew Walsh. "Anna has put in as many hours as most of the coaching staff. We're really going to miss her."
The senior was taking classes as an eighth-grade student at Taft when the football team began looking for volunteers to help with the program. Not knowing what she was getting into, Czekaj thought it was a good opportunity to give back to her school.
"I didn't really know what to do at first," Czekaj said. "I just helped out with anything that was asked."
For the first two years, Czekaj was the assistant manager -- but there wasn't anything that she didn't do.
Some of her duties included taking attendance before practice, getting water ready, taping players' ankles and wrists, keeping track of equipment and even learning how to work on muscle cramps. On Game Day, you could find Czekaj on the sideline taking care of all those duties while helping take stats.
While she always had plenty of work to do, being on the sideline during the game definitely had its perks.
"It lets you view the game in a better perspective," she said. "It's weird for me to go to a game and not be on the sidelines. It's the best place to be."
During her four years as a manager, Czekaj learned to hone her ability to foretell the future.
"You can tell how they're going to do by how the kids act, how their self esteem is, the way their attitude is," she said. "If they have positive self-esteem, that's when they win. But when they're overconfident or not focused, that's when they lose."
While dedication like Czekaj's can be found at countless other high schools, what makes her so unique is her other accomplishments at the school.
Czekaj is vice-president of the National Honor Society, vice-president of the Lettermen Club, Local School Council student representative and has a 4.5 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale. She also plays the flute and piccolo in the symphonic band and has been a shortstop on the softball team since her freshman year.
Every day during football season, she rose at 7 a.m. and went non-stop until midnight to meet her commitments and keep perfect grades in her five AP classes.
"It will all pay off in the end," Czekaj said. "You could always go to the mall or watch TV, but you can't always be on the field helping people out."
Walsh added, "When this girl puts her mind to something, she's going to do it. It will get done. She has such an incredible drive."
Czekaj is in the process of applying to top colleges all across the country. She's a finalist for a Quest Bridge Scholarship, which is a full scholarship to any Ivy League school.
She plans on studying kinesiology and hopes to be on the sideline at a major college football program next fall.
"At first I want to be an athletic trainer on the field," Czekaj said. "But after I finish college I'd like to go to medical school, get a degree and open my own practice or teach kinesiology in college."
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