MANDEVILLE, La. – Christian Westcott was named Louisiana Mr. Football, Louisiana Gatorade Player of the Year, and Class 4A Offensive MVP after accounting for over 70 touchdowns last season as the Lakeshore Titans’ team captain.
Westcott may be playing ball at Southeastern Louisiana University now, but the impression he has left on the Lakeshore High School Football program will never be forgotten.
This offseason, Lakeshore High School’s Football program, and administration came up with the idea to honor the on and off the field accomplishments of former quarterback Christian Westcott.
“We kind of started about some of the traditions that LSU had and we said wouldn’t it be cool to honor what he’s done and at the same time start a new tradition. You know our school is only ten years old. Start a new tradition that future kids can look forward to and try and aspire to be number 9 for Lakeshore high school,” said Lakeshore Head Football Coach Craig Jones.
An honor that will forever be bestowed upon players that show a desire to not only play like a titan on the field but to carry themselves like a titan off the field.
Players like the first recipient of the Jersey 9 honor, Senior Linebacker Devin Weilbaecher.
“When we were talking about who it would be it was really a no-brainer that it was going to be Devin. He kind of fits all of those qualities that Christian has and when you watch us play this year, he’s going to assume a lot of the roles schematically that we asked Christian to do on the field,” says Coach Jones.
For Devin Weilbaecher, he sees the honor as an opportunity to build on something his friend started years ago.
Weilbaecher says, “I was very pleased with it just being the relationship that I had with Christian and what he did. It’s a great honor to be able to follow that and just my mindset is to try to surpass that and bring it to the next level.”
Devin was number 36 freshman year and has been number 6 the last two seasons.
During that time he was a two-time All-District selection, finishing the 2019 season with 80 tackles, 9 and a half for loss, and an interception.
Friday night was the first time he played without number 9 by his side and with number 9 on his jersey.
When talking about the experience Weilbaecher says, “It was just things you dream about as a kid. What that means to the program, just that opportunity, it just stuff you dream about and it was awesome.”
“I’m happy with the way that Devin has embraced it because we didn’t know, he had been number 6 forever and he was going to go into his senior year and he didn’t know really what the tradition was going to be and when I asked him he’s like if it’s going to be a tradition that the school is going to stick with then I’d be honored to do it. To know that’s kind of the number that’s always going to be the person that we are going to hang our hat on is pretty cool. It’s pretty cool that that’s something that the school is going to have hopefully for years,” says Coach Jones.
