Bound by football: Nate Pauly, Tristen Dagenais share friendship over sport they love

It is uncanny the similarities between Garden Plain senior Nate Pauly and Andale senior Tristen Dagenais this season.

After being secondary options last year, they both have excelled in more prominent roles — each had 13 touchdowns heading into Friday’s games — and led their teams to undefeated starts with high rankings. Garden Plain is No. 5 in Class 3A, Andale No. 2 in 4A-I.

Pauly and Dagenais have been running wild on defenses together since the third grade, when the two began playing for the Cougars junior football team in Andale. It was back then when they discovered they were actually related (second cousins), and it was back then when they became best friends.

They told each other back then they would grow up and become high school football stars.

It took different paths at different high schools, but Pauly and Dagenais are living out what they fantasized about back in those Cougar days.

“This is what we grew up dreaming about,” Pauly said. “You want to have a good senior year and you want your team to have success, and now it’s actually happening. It’s pretty exciting and fun to watch. It’s just like what we talked about.”

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Four years ago, when Andale coach Gary O’Hair watched the Andale freshmen team play, Dagenais caught his eye with how hard he ran with the ball.

“But he was so small, it was easy to look past him,” O’Hair said. “Then you saw how tough and how competitive this kid was and you’re like, ‘OK, this guy wants to be somebody.’ ”

Pauly faced the same obstacles at Garden Plain with his smaller frame (5-foot-9, 165 pounds). He totaled more than 1,150 yards of total offense and scored 13 touchdowns last season on 69 touches, which meant he gained nearly 17 yards every time he touched the ball and scored a touchdown about every fifth time.

But Pauly has answered any questions about his durability this season, shifting to Garden Plain’s quarterback to orchestrate a deadly option attack with his quickness. In three games, Pauly exceeded his workload from last season — 70 carries for 509 yards. He’s thrown for two scores and 213 yards and has a return touchdown.

“I definitely like all of the touches and being more involved in the offense,” Pauly said. “But I guess touches never really mattered to me, as long as we got the win. As long as the team wins, I’m fine with it.”

When Andale’s lead back, Zach Meyer, was lost for the season to injury in the first game, O’Hair turned to Dagenais to take on the workload.

He has responded by becoming Andale’s big-play threat, as he has totaled 685 offensive yards and averaged 10.2 yards per touch.

“I knew Tristen was going to be a good player for us this season, but I really didn’t dream he was going to be this good,” O’Hair said.

The reality of what he and his best friend are doing didn’t sink in for Dagenais until he was looking at the state’s rushing leaders list and saw their names together near the top. Each leads his league in rushing, too.

“It’s kind of weird, but it’s so cool senior year we’re both having good seasons,” Dagenais said. “We grew up playing together and we’ve been best friends since the third grade, so this is what we always dreamed about.”

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To anyone who watched the boys play for the Cougars from the third to the sixth grade, the success Pauly and Dagenais are having now comes as no surprise.

When they were in the same backfield together, along with Meyer, they were every bit as dominant as you would imagine.

“Gosh, it was so much fun to watch those boys run,” said Vicki Dagenais, Tristen’s mother. “They would just blow out the competition. I don’t think they ever lost a regular league game. I just remember Nate was always really little and so was Tristen. I think that made them better at finding those holes at an early age because they knew they couldn’t mow people over. They had get through a different way.

“Watching them all the way through Cougar football, we knew they had the potential for something like this.”

Joan Pauly, Nate’s mother, recalled the advice from her brothers and her husband, who were also small and fast, to Nate when he was growing up.

“They always told Nate not to worry about being small, just outrun them,” Joan said. “So I think he kind of grew up thinking like that.”

The two had a mutual respect for the other from the start and they quickly hit it off as friends. Soon one was spending the night at the other’s house after every game and they were inseparable on the weekends.

Those early days were crucial to Pauly and Dagenais.

Not only did they forge a friendship, but they say winning games, scoring touchdowns and learning the game at that age is part of what makes them the players they are today.

“We have a lot of great memories from back then,” Dagenais said. “We won a lot of games and I think we had back-to-back undefeated seasons, so we always had that expectation to win.”

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To this day, Pauly and Dagenais are still nearly inseparable on the weekends. Pauly practically lives at the Dagenais house during the summer.

They play on the same summer basketball team and basically do everything else together — watch football on television, go fishing and go out to eat.

“Tristen’s mom is like Nate’s second mom really and I just think the world of Tristen and his family,” Joan Pauly said. “Nate is close to so many of those Andale boys and I couldn’t ask for better friends for my son.”

They have the same sense of humor and the same type of easygoing personality, but it is their shared love for football that makes the bond so deep.

“On the weekends, he’ll come over and we’ll watch our highlights on Hudl together,” Dagenais said of the online video service. “He’ll watch mine and then I’ll watch his and we’ll talk about it.”

They both were confident a big season was in store for the other. Pauly is the quickest runner Dagenais has seen and Dagenais runs harder than anyone Pauly has seen.

They are having the season of their dreams and it is happening at the same time.

There isn’t a friendly rivalry between the two. They’ve never seen it as a competition.

Ever since the third grade, they have been each other’s biggest fans.

“There’s no expectations from each other,” Dagenais said. “We know we’re both always hoping for the best and we’re still going to be best friends. He’s pretty much like a brother to me. He’s been a brother to me since the third grade.”

This story was originally published September 23, 2016 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Bound by football: Nate Pauly, Tristen Dagenais share friendship over sport they love."