Goddards enjoying chance to play together
By Michael Doti
Tribune Sports Writer
Tyler and Chase Goddard are twins who
have played football together since the fourth
grade. Now, they are seniors in high school
and they are trying to help Cherokee make
the playoffs for a record fourth year in a row.
Both play defense, with Tyler playing
outside linebacker and Chase playing defensive
back. They saw a lot of playing
time last year, and it should increase this
year. They wouldn’t want it any other way.
“Playing together, it’s just awesome.
Being out there together, seeing (Chase)
do good, seeing the defense do good, it’s
awesome,” Tyler said.
“Hyping everyone up is pretty cool, too,”
Chase added.
Last season the brothers began to realize
their potential. Tyler was second on the
team in tackles with 92, tied for seventh in
the county with 11 tackles for loss and added
three sacks. Playing behind him, Chase
finished with 57 tackles, two tackles for loss
and a 37-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown.
It earned Tyler first team all-region
honors, while Chase was an all-region honorable
mention. Tyler said communication
with one another is key to their success.
“Sometimes we can read each other’s
mind,” he said. “If a quarterback’s really
smart and you can tell, ‘Hey, what is he
looking like, what defensive coverage are
they running,’ we can look at each other
and just know what’s going to happen and
say, ‘All right, let’s do this,’ and just being
on the same page, it’s pretty cool.”
Coach Josh Shaw said the key to them
being in sync a lot is their intelligence.
“I think first of all, it starts that they’re both
very cerebral and super intelligent, their high
end academic kids so they are able to decipher
the game plan and one plays linebacker,
one place safety, and so they most of the
time they know all of our checks,” he said.
“They’re the leaders of our defense and they
call the majority of the coverages, so whether
it be Tyler the linebacker calling the defensive
front and Chase calling the secondary,
they have to always match them up when
they make those types of calls.”
The Goddards said Devin and Jason Mc-
Courty are inspirations. Tyler said they like
how the McCourtys, who played together at
Rutgers and for three years together with the
New England Patriots, are always in sync.
While the McCourtys are the duo they look
up to, Chase Goddard said their defensive
coordinator, Davis Harvey, has helped them
improve their performance the most. He said
Harvey is an expert at what he does and that
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the brothers really respect him.
The one downside of being twin teammates
is that they are susceptible to being called the
wrong name. Chase said it happens all the time.
“We’ve known our coaches for a while and
they’ll still call me Tyler and him Chase,”
Goddard said. “We just learned to respond to
both like, ‘Hey, I know you’re talking to me,
but that’s not the right name, but yes sir.’”
Shaw said he is no exception to that either.
“It’s embarrassing to be honest with you, but
you’ve got to pick something out, whether one
of them’s got highlights in his hair on occasion
and then you know the difference, or their shoe
color, or something like that,” Shaw said. “Obviously
in a game you’ve got different numbers
and I know who they are at that point, but if they
are working out in the weight room or we were
just at that seven on seven and I meant to say
something to Tyler and it was Chase and he just
pointed to the other one.”
Both of them said they’re not focused on
stats going into this season. They said it would
be nice to get a lot of tackles and in Chase’s
case, to be recognized as a top-five safety in
the region, but they said they care more about
wins — and the chance to host a playoff game.
Although both of them play baseball as well,
which is the sport they have gotten college offers
from, they said there is no other feeling
like playing on Friday night with your brother.
Good Luck
This Season!
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