Jensen Meeker is a talented runner and basketball player, but football sparked his interest when the graduates of 2022 convinced him to go out for football for the first time this season – as a senior. 

“It’s like a foreign language to me,” Meeker said, explaining that football was a brand new sport to learn.

Meeker plays receiver and corner on the varsity team.,” Jensen is an amazing young man and a huge addition to our football program,” head football coach Lance Pedersen said 

Friends and the camaraderie of teammates are what keep Meeker playing. He feels he’s wanted on the team, so he was playing for everyone, not just himself. Some of his friends, seniors Austin Deeb and Vargas Locke, were very helpful to Meeker and answered a lot of questions that Meeker had about football. Locke is Meeker’s partner during practice. Meeker said that Locke answered a lot of his questions about football during practice. Meeker said that Deeb encouraged him to get better at football and kept him going. 

Friday, Sept. 2, was a game against the Solon Spartans, who had a 19- year streak of winning against the Mustangs, but Mount Vernon held strong and won with a score of 17-14. Against Solon, Meeker had 5 receptions for 52 yards and played a key role on the defensive side with an interception in the third quarter. “He has had a lot of success early and is very humble,” said head football coach Lance Pedersen. “Jensen has worked extremely hard to be both mentally and physically ready for each practice and every game,” Pedersen added.

Meeker’s defense coverage was good most of the time, Meeker also had a few penalties on offense, but that came with not having played offense before. Locke said Meeker “played like a dog” on Friday night against the Solon Spartans. Luckily Meeker got to play in and out of the whole game. He was worried he wouldn’t be able to play a lot because earlier in the season he had an injury to his foot. 

When Meeker started football he was afraid of taking other people’s play and not being accepted by his teammates because he was inexperienced. At the end of the day, all of Meeker’s teammates were very helpful and were very excited and happy that he was playing on the team. ”I love this young man and we love having him on our team,” Pedersen said.  

Meeker’s advice to any new football player is to put a lot of time and effort into football and not be scared to try new things.