Football Player Profile - Paul Stevenson

As junior Paul Stevenson enters his seventh year of football, he has plenty of good moments and plays to look back on. However, Stevenson isn’t interested in what he has already accomplished. Instead, Stevenson values the mistakes he has made in his past seasons as a way to improve.

“Last season went pretty well,” he said. “It showed me a lot of my weaknesses, and I can use that to figure out what I need to work on.”

This mentality has already led Stevenson the varsity as a junior, and has pushed him to improve even more this offseason.

“For this season, I’ve been trying to gain about 15 pounds and work on my quickness,” he said. “I’ve already gained about 10 pounds, which has made me stronger and harder to bring down.”

Stevenson hopes that his work over the offseason will translate to more playing time this season, as he prepares to share playing time with senior Tommy Avers. Not only does he hope to play more in each game, he hopes to play more games by making a long playoff run.

“This season, I want to see the field as much as possible,” Stevenson said. “As far as the team goes, I want to play at least until Thanksgiving.”

Though Stevenson hopes to see more playing time, and is devoting a lot of his time to training for the season, he says that, to him, football is still about having a good time, not necessarily about being the best player.

“The most important part of football to me is to have fun, because it’s just a game,” he said.

Although he relies heavily on what he describes as a combination of speed and power, Stevenson says, ultimately, him main goal is just to have fun. In fact, Stevenson says that his favorite moments aren’t his best plays, but those in which he had the most fun.

“Freshman year was my favorite year because that’s when I had the most fun playing football,” he said.

As one of the few juniors on varsity, Stevenson says he enjoys being able to look up to the seniors, and learn things from them that will help him become a better player this year, and in the future.

“On the field I look up to most of the seniors because they show us underclassmen how Dragon football is played,” he said.

In addition to football, Stevenson also plays, and excels at lacrosse. Though he dedicates much of his time to football, Stevenson says he tries to spend just as much if not more time on lacrosse. Stevenson hopes to continue playing lacrosse in college, but is unsure whether he will continue to play football.

“I play a lot of lacrosse,” he said. “My least favorite part about football is doing track in the offseason, because it conflicts with lacrosse. I try to put as much time into lacrosse as I can, and I hope to play in college, and maybe play football too.” 

By Sean Meehan, Carroll Boosters Staff Writer