Imagine the most intelligent, dedicated, and ambitious athlete at C. Milton Wright-
then make him a ginger. Meet Matt Sampson, a Senior at CMW and a captain of our varsity
football team. Matt has constantly exhibited incredible leadership skills and talent in his
sport throughout his four years at C. Milton Wright. Outside of football season, you might
find him around the school for National Honors Society or tending to his responsibilities in
Senior Class Council.

While we don’t have his senior year stats yet, we do have his stats from the past two
seasons. In his sophomore year he had no offensive stats, but several defensive stats in
the 7 games he played. He had 13 solo tackles, 3 assisted tackles for a total of 16 tackles.
He averaged 2.5 tackles per game in his sophomore year. His junior season was his
breakout year, playing offense as well as defense, he had 329 yards off 24 receptions and
one touchdown. Defensively is where he shined having 54 solo tackles, 21 assisted tackles
for a total of 75 tackles all together. He averaged 7.5 tackles per game while also playing 10
games. Junior year was a large step up from his sophomore year and his senior year should
be another step in the right direction.

Every athlete has strengths and weaknesses, and Matt Sampson is in tune with his.
He considers his greatest weakness in his athletic career to be his tendency to overthink
and ignore his well-honed instincts. His worst game, unfortunately, was his senior season
home opener against Perryville. Sampson reports it was “a game we should have won” and
remarks that he is “still upset we lost, as [he] could have played a better role in preventing
that [the loss].”

Just as he is aware of his weaknesses, Matt Sampson knows his strengths. In
contrast to his in-the-moment overthinking, Sampson believes his asset is his ability to
analyze film before a game. Another positive, Sampson considers the best game of his
athletic career to be last year’s away game against Bel Air, in which CMW won by a narrow
one point. His greatest achievement in his athletic career is receiving a D2 offer from
Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania.

Next year, Sampson will be playing football in college; there are no details on which
school he’ll be at. Stay tuned to find out where Matt Sampson will find himself next fall.