Alva’s Nathan Hunt – Character Counts Presented by Community Bank

By John Tranchina

Nathan Hunt may be just a junior, but the wide receiver has stepped into a leadership role for the Alva football squad, helping out his younger teammates off the field and displaying an impressive work ethic on it.

“Showing the young ones what do to and how to do it, and just helping them out, I like to do that,” Hunt said of his leadership style. “I’m real good friends with all of them. I give young ones rides to places and show them the plays and proper technique and help them along the way, stuff like that, motivation.”

One other key aspect of Hunt’s leadership is demonstrating how hard he has worked to improve himself. At 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds, Hunt knew he had to get bigger and faster, so he focused on that all off-season, even joining the Alva track team and running the springs to help him increase his speed.

“I really needed to get bigger, because I was kind of little, so I got bigger and improved my speed,” Hunt said. “That was my main goal, speed. I needed to get faster. We just ran a lot as a team. We’re not a very big team but we try to make up for it with speed. A lot of running – running ladders, pushing sled, all that kind of stuff.”

Hunt, who also plays basketball at Alva, enjoyed his time with the track team last spring.

“I ran the 800, almost made it to state in that, and then I ran the 100 and 200, all those different things,” he said. “(It was) mainly for football, but then towards the end of the year, I actually started liking it when I started seeing improvement and started winning stuff.”

The Goldbugs, who went 6-4 last football season but missed the Class 2A playoffs, lost their first two games of 2019, both by eight points or less, but Hunt remains optimistic the team will enjoy a strong year.

“We just need to fix the errors. I think if we just fix the errors, we win (the opener, a 33-26 defeat to Thomas-Fay-Custer),” said Hunt, who is also involved with the FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) at Alva. “It’s the little things, special teams. When we get all that fixed, I think we’ll be a good team.”