Sr. Vikings carry a team-first mentality into HS football season

By JAMES TUBB on August 28, 2025.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

The Crescent Heights Vikings senior football team didn’t need to do a lot of team building to get their season underway.

The Vikings enter the 2025 season as a cohesive group, head coach Anthony Anderson says. It’s his third season with the Sr. Vikings but he’s worked with his now senior players since they were in Grade 9, having seen them grow as players and people.

He says they possess a team-first and selfless attitude that makes his job easy as a coach. They set goals as a team heading into the season and Anderson says he received more team goals than personal ones from his players.

“I had a player send me his list of goals, and he said, ‘Are these attainable coach,’ and I looked at them and it was a really proud coaching moment of mine, he put all of the team goals first,” Anderson said. “Just having that shared mindset of these are the team goals that we want to achieve. I can also achieve individual goals, but as long as I’m working towards that shared team goal, then that’s how we see success.”

The Vikings open their season on the road tonight in exhibition action against the Stettler Wildcats. Anderson says his team has been eagerly asking to see video and get ready for the game, even with no video available as they both prepare for their first games. It’s a reflection of the excitement and hunger he says they bring to the field.

“They’re so driven by football, and it’s really cool because I kind of went through this transformation as a high school player as well where I realized there is a possibility to play football after high school,” Anderson said. “That’s when you start really loving the game and really striving for something.”

It’s that team-first mentality and the drive to be successful that Anderson says will be their recipe for getting wins this fall on the gridiron.

“Just the shift in practice and mentality and everything that these guys have, I just am so proud of how far these guys have come,” Anderson said.

They’ll officially kick off the season on Sept. 5 at the Methanex Bowl against the Monsignor McCoy Colts in the fifth annual Boksteyn Bowl in memory of the late Rick Boksteyn, who passed in 2020 after coaching high school football for over 36 years and served on the Medicine Hat fire department for 35 years. McCoy won last year’s game for the first time.

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