Blake Hogshooter’s breakout season for the Bixby Spartans rang to the tune of eight receiving touchdowns, over 400 yards and a state championship, Bixby’s sixth consecutive title and ninth in 10 years.

“I didn’t know about them [Bixby football] until my parents got a house here,” Hogshooter said.

He has played football for 11 years and moved to Bixby in the second grade, but it wasn’t until the eighth grade that Hogshooter fully began to grasp the tradition that Bixby has curated under the leadership of coach Loren Montgomery over the past decade and a half.

“I thought the program was great, and I had the idea if you play for this team, you’re going to do what the coaches require,” Hogshooter said. “Also, that if you put the work in and trust the process you will develop.”

Hogshooter recalls the rush of playing his first game in a Spartans uniform on Week 0 of 2022 in the Battle of the ‘Burbs at Tulsa’s H.A. Chapman Stadium.

“I was very nervous, but after that first snap, it was just football,” Hogshooter said. “My first year on varsity, I started on kickoff and subbed in and out at receiver. I had a lot of good seniors above me, so it was hard to get much P.T.”

From upperclassmen like Cale Fugate, Dylan Hasz, Sam McCormick, Hogshooter learned “the basics of Bixby football.”

“Just watching them play was enough to learn,” Hogshooter said. “The coaches thought they were doing things right, so I just did what they did.”

Hogshooter climbed the ladder and earned himself a starting role on the Spartans’ offense last year.

“I mainly played to halftime, then got subbed out because of a big lead. My breakout game was against Jenks. I had three touchdowns, one called back, scored all three in the second half,” Hogshooter said.

Two years after first donning the blue, red, and white, Hogshooter will have the responsibility of protecting the Bixby football tradition — something that every team wants to take from them — along with his senior teammates.

“It means everything. These are my friends I’ve grown up with basically my whole life. What the coaches teach and stand for, I fully believe is how you achieve total success, not just in football, but in life,” Hogshooter said. “I’d say just being a senior now, I’m a role model for the younger kids; how to do right every day and that it’s not easy to grind all the time, but it will pay off.”

After high school, Hogshooter plans to continue his football career at the collegiate level “with the same work ethic I got from Bixby and continue to grind.”