Twelve believers: How a young coach restored hope in Augusta football again
There was a nervous energy in the small gym inside Augusta High School on a spring afternoon in 2024, as a young football coach paced in front of a dozen players scattered across the bleachers.
Dawson Elliott had just been hired as Augusta’s new head coach, his first time leading a program. He was 32, intense and raw. He loved football, loved Augusta and loved coaching. But as he looked out and counted the faces — just 12 of them — his stomach turned.
“Looking around, it was like, ‘Dang, 12 people isn’t even enough for an offense and a defense,’” quarterback Brody Haskell remembered. “It was a little concerning.”
For a program coming off years of losing and apathy, the number felt symbolic: a team too small to dream, too beaten down to believe. But when Elliott began to speak, the mood shifted.
“When there’s only 12 people there, it’s really hard to imagine being good,” running back Owen Roberts said. “You can’t win with 12 people. But listening to Elliott, he’s just one of those people who makes you believe.”
Elliott didn’t talk about formations or weightlifting plans. He spoke from the heart. About hard work, about building a true team, about believing when no one else does. For the first time in a long time, belief filled the air.
“I was nervous for sure, but I’ve always believed in myself,” Elliott said. “I knew if I could get the kids to see how much I cared and how much I’m going to put into it, they’re going to buy into the process.”
No one at that moment could have imagined that those 12 faces would become the foundation of one of the most remarkable football stories in Kansas this fall. A program that finished 1-9 last season and started 1-5 this season is now charging into the Class 4A state quarterfinals on Friday for the first time since 2005.
That meeting is where the story of the Orioles’ rebirth began.
How the Augusta Orioles football team turned around their season
The story could have ended long before this week.
A month ago, Augusta sat 1-5. The Orioles had dropped three straight heartbreakers by a combined seven points, a stretch that could have easily broken a team.
“It was really tough because it gave us flashbacks to the past,” Haskell said. “But we came together and spoke to each other about wanting to be different. We didn’t want to go out like those past teams. We just kept believing in each other.”
For Elliott, this was the defining moment of the season. It was the kind of gut check that would expose who a team really is.
If any word could describe the team’s eight seniors — Haskell, Roberts, Brecken Albert, Gunner Carey, Griffin Tatom, Cade Camac, Tyler Henman and Hoyt Gull — it would be resilient.
“Everything is nice and dandy when you’re winning, but the true character of a man is revealed when things go wrong,” Elliott said. “The real character of who you are comes when you’re 1-5. When your back is against the wall, who are you as a man? These kids showed who they are and that they’re not going to back down.”
In practices, the energy never dipped. If anything, it increased. The Orioles treated every day with the same level of hunger and desperation as they played with on Friday nights.
“We don’t just want it on Friday,” Haskell said. “We want it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.”
That hunger has become their identity. Augusta doesn’t have the size or depth of other teams. What they do have is a “want-to” that hasn’t been matched yet in the playoffs.
The offensive line, anchored by Carey and Camac, is undersized but fearless. Albert stretches the field as a playmaking wideout, while Haskell commands the offense with steady leadership. And Roberts, the undersized running back, has become the beating heart of the offense.
Elliott had pushed them to their limits long before the scoreboard ever reflected progress. Practices were grueling, the weight-room sessions relentless. There were days when the players were exhausted and their legs burned and lungs screamed, then nights when they wondered if all the work would ever be worth it.
Through the heartbreak of those early losses, belief was all they had to hold onto. But when Augusta finally broke through on Oct. 17 with a 50-29 win at McPherson, an opponent that had dominated the Orioles for the past decade, the work finally met reward.
For the first time, the Orioles didn’t just believe they could beat good teams. They knew they could.
“When you prepare your body and your mind to that level, then that eliminates the doubt,” Elliott said. “When you know you’re in better shape and you’ve worked harder than the other team, that’s when kids start to believe and have confidence in themselves because they know they’ve put in the work. But the work has to come first.”
Augusta Orioles football seniors enjoying the payoff
A month later, the Orioles have won four straight games and are playing in their first state quarterfinal in two decades. They’ve beaten McPherson twice and avenged their earlier heartbreak with a 35-20 win over Mulvane last Friday. Each victory has deepened the belief that what’s happening in Augusta is real.
The community has noticed. The stands are filling again. The school hallways are buzzing. The same town that has watched its football team endure three straight losing seasons now rallied around it, proud of a group of kids who refused to quit.
“Outside opinions don’t really hold much weight anymore like they used to,” Roberts said. “Some people would base everything off what other people in school thought of them. But now it’s just about us and that’s all that matters.”
When Augusta clinched its first regional championship in 20 years, Elliott allowed the moment to wash over him. The serious, hard-nosed coach who’d built this program from the ground up found himself fighting back tears as he watched his seniors — the same ones who sat in that empty gym and believed in his vision when no one else did — dance and celebrate on the field.
It wasn’t about proving doubters wrong. It was about seeing belief rewarded.
“It was real important to me to see these kids work for something and then earn it,” Elliott said. “That’s a big thing we try to teach them in life. And now the big thing is trying to not let them feel content. We want to keep reaching higher.”
When they step on the field in Wamego on Friday night, the Orioles will once again be underdogs.
But that’s never been what defines them. What matters now isn’t the opponent or the odds. It’s the belief that’s carried them this far, the same belief that began with the 12 players sitting in a quiet gym, listening to a young coach promise that change was coming.
“I knew eventually it would turn around with Elliott as head coach,” Haskell said. “But I wasn’t sure if I’d be around to experience it. But our senior class really wanted to be part of the change. We didn’t want to wait. We wanted to win now.”
This story was originally published November 12, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
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