Po-Hi Football adopts new slogan

One player, who had played one year of Ponca City High School Football is all it took. William Ford, father of senior player Jesse took his sons words and blanketed this town with them.

William moved his family to town from the Ft. Worth area for a job right before school started last year. The job wasn’t quite what William expected, so after one year he sat his five children down to tell them they were moving back to Texas. This family meeting brought on tears and sadness. William even brought his oldest son, Jesse back to his old school in Texas, in the town he lived in since first grade. They looked at the new facilities it got after making it to the play-offs Jesse’s last year there, but Jesse’s heart was here.

“He looked at me and said, ‘I still feel, I believe I need to finish what I started,’" William said. "’I believe in these guys, we’ve established something different and we need to finish.’"

It was then the words William had raised his kids on came back, “Fords don’t quit.” William found a better job in the area, and began branding this team with the phrase “We Believe.” These words are on marquees, signs and t-shirts all because one player, who played one year of Ponca City Football.

William said he wants these players to see the support every turn they take in this town. This team is coming off an 0-10 season, which is a hard pill to swallow. William and his family wants the town to stand behind these players.

"Everybody likes to be negative, everyone likes to be the nay-sayer, but how powerful is it to have positive word spoken into your life," William said. " I wanted to tell them we believe in them, that the town needs to get behind them and we wanted them to see it along the streets, business marquees. We wanted them to get the message everywhere they went in this town, that they are worth something, that they can win and that it can happen right here in Ponca City."

Jesse will take the Po-Hi field for his final high school season as inside linebacker, believing.