Beck Moss has waited a lifetime for this.
“I can’t stop smiling,” says the Irvine High School quarterback, who spent the last year self-training for the return of high school football, which begins this month.
“I got a weight rack in my garage,” says the 6-3, 190-pound senior. “I’m lucky enough to have a large park at the end of my street, and my top receiver and buddy Kade Zimmerman lives across the street, so we were able to do some workouts.”
Moss, who threw for 2,193 yards and 19 touchdowns as a junior for the Vaqueros, never doubted that he’d lead his team one more time.
“A lot of dudes were like, ‘No, it’s not going to happen,’ ” he says. “I tried not to let that spread, and bring them back to the positive side of things like, ‘This is going to happen. We’re going to keep pushing through it.’ ”
Moss is hoping for a big senior year after earning all-first team Pacific Coast League honors as a junior. His goal is to lead the Vaqueros to the league title.
“It’s going to be really emotional,” he says. “We’re going to be so prepared.”
The season was supposed to start last August but kept getting pushed back. Moss and his teammates kept hearing, “We will tell you next week,” while team practices consisted of online Zoom meetings.
“It was rough,” he says. “But I’m very positive. I’ve just been waiting for it.”
Moss looks forward to playing again with his Irvine football family, including wide receiver Zimmerman, his favorite target in 2019.
“We met when we were 4 years old,” Moss says. “We played flag football all of our little-kid years. We grew up playing at the park at the end of our street. This was the year we were looking forward to, then all of this craziness happened.”
Irvine High head football coach Tom Ricci says Moss set an example for the team throughout the pandemic.
“He is one of the hardest-working athletes I have had the privilege to coach in my 30-something years of coaching,” Ricci says. “Everything he does is for the betterment of the team.”
Moss says his main focus now is on the first game back.
“Me and my family, Kade and his family, we’ve all been looking forward to this, our senior season,” he says. “It’s going to be amazing.”
