How this Lena-Winslow football star went from late bloomer to all-stater
LENA — It’s a huge honor to be named all-state. Especially when you are the only all-stater at annual powerhouse Lena-Winslow, which Friday will play for its fifth Class 1A state football title since 2010.
“I was not expecting that,” Le-Win senior linebacker/tight end Brody Mahon said. “To wake up and see that was incredible. Coach (Ric) Arand came up and shook my hand at school. I was like, ‘What’s this for?’ It was surreal when they made the announcement.”
The 1A plaques will be given out by the Illinois Football Coaches Association at NIU on Friday, when Le-Win (11-2) plays Carrollton (12-1).
“There’s no better way to be presented the award than to also be playing that day at DeKalb,” Mahon said. “Personally, I think there should be more than one on our team that got all-state."
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In particular, Mahon said cornerback/halfback Marey Robey, who missed last year with a knee injury but ran for 400 yards in the Panthers’ last two playoff wins, should have been honored.
But, nope, Mahon was the one honored by the state’s football coaches as Le-Win’s best player. And whenever he didn’t look like it in Saturday’s 28-12 win over Colfax Ridgeville/Lexington, Arand let him know it.
“If I missed a tackle or let a guy get outside of me, he’d use that phrase against me,” Mahon said. “He’d say, I’m an all-stater. I should be playing like one. Oh, boy. But I knew that would happen. He gets mad at us to get the switch turned on.”
“I’m just trying to motivate him to play better,” Arand said, “and make plays and not be down on himself.”
Le-Win coaches first began pushing Mahon’s buttons after his sophomore season. They told Mahon’s parents that they expected big things out of Mahon as a junior.
“That shocked me,” Mahon recalled. “I used to not get any recognition. That was the first moment when it actually showed.”
Mahon had never started on any level before starting on the fresh-soph team in 2019. That season, fellow sophomores Luke Benson and Roby were starring on the varsity state champs that went 14-0, sent three players to Iowa in the Big Ten and staked a claim as perhaps the best Class 1A team in state history.
Arand (219-66) can’t recall ever having an all-stater in his 25 years at Le-Win who did not start at any level before his junior year. But he always thought Mahon could be good.
“Brody is a smart kid and works hard. He has made the best of everything he has been given,” Arand said. “When he was a freshman, like a lot of freshmen, he struggled to see the field. It’s the first time in your athletic career you are playing with kids older than you. But he really turned it on as a sophomore and became a great player a year ago as a junior. He continues to turn himself into a great player.”
Some of that is his size. At 6-foot-4, 205 pounds, Mahon can outmuscle many of his opponents.
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That is a drastic difference for Mahon.
A difference he sees every night when he goes to bed. And wakes up in the morning. He has a sticky note on his bedroom wall bearing his weight his freshman year: 136 pounds. He began taking whey protein and hitting the weight room extra had that year.
Three years later, he has grown 6 inches and added 69 pounds.
“He’s come a long way from what he was his freshman year,” Roby said. “He’s the definition of a hard worker. He’s an all-stater and a game changer for us on defense. We love him.”
They may love him, but they used to tease him when he was on the smaller side.
“When I was smaller, I wasn’t very strong, either,” Mahon said. “As a linebacker, my biggest fear was people coming to block me. I had a hard time shedding it. Now I find it easy fighting off blocks and getting to the gaps.
“I get teased a lot now about how I used to be one of the smallest kids in my class and now I’m the tallest. I hear that a lot from my friends. I love it. I used to be the one people made fun of for being small. Now I am the one who makes fun of them.”
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And Friday, like so many past Panthers before him, he will go out on the biggest stage, playing for a state title.
“Being a leader and a part of the Lena-Winslow defense is incredible,” Mahon said. “We push ourselves so hard. And our expectations are the same every single year: Make it to state. And win state.”
Matt Trowbridge: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com; @matttrowbridge
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: IHSA football: Brody Mahon went from undersized freshman to all-stater
