More often than not, a football team’s season is defined in some manner by injuries. A key physical setback involving a star — or, worse, several breaks/tears/pulls to multiple players — can completely alter dreams that appeared oh, so promising back in August.

Then again …

If you’re the Hamlin Pied Pipers, you just call on the “next man up” and keep on rolling.

By halftime of the Pied Pipers’ season-opening game against Anson, coach Jason Botos had witnessed four starters being helped to the sideline by the school’s training staff. The post-game diagnosis list included a torn ACL, a broken collar bone, a broken ankle and a significantly damaged shoulder.

Not surprisingly, the final score — Anson 49, Hamlin 6 — showed the immediate toll injuries can take. What happened thereafter, however, showed a team forged amid the school’s first playoff appearance in half a decade in 2024 still hungering for that kind of success. And, injuries or no injuries, this feisty bunch plans to play to — and perhaps through — mid-November once again.

In neighborhoods across the state, it has been a long-standing tradition for youngsters to gather, footballs in hand, to determine who might become the next great quarterback, running back or receiver.

The highlights are a-plenty, as these dreamers hone the awe-inspiring throws, moves and receptions we eventually watch on television on fall weekends. In local backyards and on streets bounded by unfortunately parked cars, names known primarily in a household ultimately evolve into household names nationwide — all because they can pass, run and catch “better than the other kids.”

It’s a Texas rite of passage, this yearning to become a football star at one of the celebrated offensive positions.

Yet, somehow, that dream wasn’t even remotely part of the formative routine of Kyson McGee, the young man who might become Hamlin’s most explosive offensive weapon this fall.

As Hamlin looks to build on the momentum created last season, when it went 6-4 and earned a playoff berth for the first time in four years, coach Jason Botos is cautiously optimistic that the Pied Pipers will be even more formidable this fall.

For one thing, Botos has eight starters returning on offense and another nine on the defensive side of the ball. That means that a majority of the players who finally pushed the team into the playoffs are back — and, as Botos noted, eager to build on 2024’s success.

Also helping the cause is the Pied Pipers’ stable of offensive and defensive backs, which are among the best the team has fielded in recent memory.