When George Washington first brought Dwight Swift on to take over its football program in 2019, the Patriots didn’t know just how serendipitous that hire would be.

In Swift’s first meeting with the team, just seven kids showed up. A couple of games into the season, only 19 suited up. The Patriots finished that season with a 1-9 record, but his work was just getting started.

“Taking the job, I knew it was going to be a rebuild situation for us. I actually graduated from George in 2002 and I just know that tradition and the history that George Washington has,” Swift said. “That first year was kind of just building the culture and getting kids to embrace what I was trying to coach them up to do and build a brotherhood, like what I had when I was at George."

“I kind of let the kids, some of those leaders and captains, take control and recruit for us also. The kids know what we were about and how we wanted to do things and just kind of let the product sell for itself.”

As word spread throughout the hallways, more and more kids bought into the program and joined. At the time, the school didn’t have enough jerseys available for the number of kids Swift wanted to put on the field, so they fundraised to get the gear they needed.

In 2020, during the COVID-delayed Season C, the Patriots won five out of six games. In 2021, they went 7-3. Now, a little over halfway through the fall season, George Washington boasts a 6-1 record and even pummeled its first few opponents. Most recently, they moved to 2-0 in league with a 35-7 win over Niwot, Oct. 13.

The players continue to buy into the brotherhood, and the results are translating onto the field.

“This year’s team stands out the most from past years because of the leadership and tenacity everyone has on the team and some of the work that the team has put in,” senior wide receiver Marcellus Honeycutt Jr. said. “I’m going to shout out to one of my teammates, Jarai Vaughn, who would put in extra time and effort to work out. I remember sophomore year, he would go on 4 a.m. jogs every morning during the summer just to get better and that’s just one of the guys on the team.”

Throughout his tenure, Swift has preached that his players treat their athletic commitment like a job. Show up, be great student-athletes in the hallways and become leaders in the building, on the field and in the community.  In doing so, he’s sent kids to college — some with athletic scholarships — and watched as the win column kept growing in the high school arena.

Honeycutt Jr. and senior wide receiver Silas Evans have been with him since the beginning and have experienced all the ups and downs that naturally come with the sport. So far this season, they’ve excelled for their team as Honeycutt Jr., an Eastern Washington commit, commands the run game with 663 rushing yards nine touchdowns and Evans, a Colorado State commit, leads with 297 receiving yards and four touchdowns.

They’re excited to see where their final high school season can take them as the Patriots continue to take it one game at the time. They hope they’ll be standing alone atop Class 3A at the end of the season but know the road to get there won’t be easy.

“We know how it felt to lose and now we get to know what it feels like to win because of the time and effort we put in since freshman year,” Evans said. “At a point, we were a laughing stock, but who’s laughing now? Our work ethic pays off because we practice no matter the circumstances and we’re always taking time to get better in the weight room and on that field.”