Ganado’s Holt inks letter of intent to Yellow Jackets

By Beth Foley

Staff Writer

Wednesday morning represented the attainment of a lifelong dream for Dylan Holt.

In a ceremony attended by the entire school at the gym and surrounded by his family, coaching staff, and teammates, Holt signed a letter of intent to play football at Howard Payne University, an NCAA Division III private university in Brownwood.

At 5-11 and 195 pounds, Holt wasn’t the biggest or fastest player on the field, but arguably few had more heart. After all, when you overcome a broken back, what’s a little competition on the field?

Holt suffered a cracked L5 vertebra during two-a-day workouts prior to the start of his freshman year, which also happened to be right as schools were opening back up after shutting down in the spring during the Covid-19 pandemic. That had forced coaches across the state to send home pages of workouts for athletes to do on their own, because in-person supervision was suspended.

Holt’s father, Douglas, said that the combination of mild scoliosis and weak core muscles set his son up for back problems, and the Covid isolation meant no coaches or trainers were there to spot problems.

“Normally in the spring season, if you’re hurting and you’re there working out with the coaches, you go straight to the Methodist (Hospital) guy and he checks you out,” Douglas Holt said. “None of that happened. That went on for six months. He wasn’t telling anybody. We didn’t know. So that combination is why his L5 cracked. It was a unique situation.”

When they took Dylan to the doctor to check out his back pain, they learned that his L5 was cracked and that Dylan needed to be completely shut down for at least six months.

After consulting with medical experts and with parents of other athletes who had suffered the same injury, the Holts decided to stretch it to a year without athletics, in the effort to make certain Dylan was healed.

“They wouldn’t even let him carry a bag,” Douglas said. “He couldn’t jog. He was taking the elevator at school. It was a huge thing for a kid who wants to play college football. And you get (to) freshman year, you lose a whole year. It was humongous.”

Once he was allowed to resume physical activities, Dylan strengthened his core and his resolve. The result? All-State linebacker in his first varsity season, then All-State defensive lineman as a senior this past fall.

“I just love the sport,” Dylan said. “It’s love of the sport is what pushes you, mainly. That’s really it.”

He kept focused on making the most of the time he would have, rather than becoming discouraged by watching classmates playing without him.

“I knew I’d get my time,” he said. “I’d have my time and I knew I was going to get it (the) next year.”

As a sophomore in the fall of 2021, he earned All State at linebacker while anchoring the defense as the Indians finished second in district and went three rounds deep in the playoffs, losing to Refugio. In 2022, he continued to play linebacker and running back, helping the Indians again reach the third round of the playoffs, where they again lost to Refugio.

Head football coach Josh Ervin and staff asked Dylan to switch from the middle of the defense to a down lineman’s position before his senior year, which he agreed to as a way to help the team. He put in the extra work in the weight room and pushed the sled to improve his leverage strength.

“That’s what’s really, really special about Dylan,” Ervin said. “He’s the first kid I’ve ever been around that’s been All State in two different defensive positions in his career. At the end of the day, I think it just gets down to, he’s a really, really good football player and a good kid and he’s going to give me total effort in whatever he does.”

Even when changing positions.

“Of course it sucked, whatever, but I knew that my players and people that are here still, that would be playing next year, I knew that they had it, I knew they could fill in my place,” Dylan said. “I knew that I could trust them to do their job and they could trust me to do my new job.”

The move paid off.

The Tribe finished 5-1 in district, losing only to Refugio, and proceeded to go five rounds deep, finally turning the tables on Refugio and knocking them out of the playoffs in a 41-12 win. Ganado lost to state champion Timpson in the state semifinals, but those final two games were the ones that Holt made his presence felt the most, Ervin said.

“In my eight-year coaching career, that is the best performance I think I’ve ever seen from a kid,” Ervin said of Holt in the Refugio playoff game. “He had 150 rushing yards, he broke a long one in the third or fourth (quarter) to separate the game. He had two defensive touchdowns and dominated both sides of the ball and he turned into, in my opinion, an All State running back those last two games of the season, Refugio and Timpson.

“That’s what’s really special. He was playing his best football of his four-year career at the very end.”

Seeing his son get the opportunity to live out his dream meant the world, Douglas Holt said.

“It means a lot, mainly because in elementary he was already coming to us, saying I want to play college football,” Douglas Holt said. “At a young age he knew what he wanted to do and so we backed him all the way. This is the main thing that he likes, football. It always has been. He does the other sports but it’s always been football #1 and everything else 40 rungs down the ladder.

“It’s such a huge accomplishment because it’s what he’s wanted all the time. He’s put in the work to get it. So that’s why today is so special just because it’s what he said he’s wanted for a long time and he actually achieved it.”

Holt represented more than yards and tackles to the Indian football program, he said. It was his leadership by example.

“The younger kids were able to look at him and see how he battled through the adversity, sitting out a year but getting better from it and finding a way to get better for his sophomore year,” Ervin said. “And then, at the end of the day, he did what was best for the team in moving positions to something that maybe he didn’t want to do but he said, ‘I’ll play whatever position we need for the team to be as good as it can be.’

“Obviously you see the result this year in making the semifinals for the first time in 14 years. He is just a super special kid and I’m glad he had the senior year that he had.”

Now Dylan is looking ahead to getting on campus and immersing himself in the YellowJackets football program, a program he chose because of the coaches there.

“I really like them,” Holt said. “They’re very good people. It’s very good atmosphere. I think I’m pretty lucky.”