Every year, the Plant City Observer asks high school football coaches to nominate one player from their teams who exhibits great character, leadership and the ability to overcome obstacles.
Jeren Bendorf doesn’t let anything bring his spirits down, and life’s given him plenty of chances for that of late.
Last season, right when things were going well for the Raiders, Bendorf hurt his ankle shortly before the Raiders started the postseason. He wasn’t able to play in the playoffs at all.
“It was a tough transition for me not to be in the playoff game,” Bendorf said. “That sucked. You just have to stay positive by supporting your team. Support the leaders. Support the other guys.”
In the offseason, Bendorf was faced with a choice: either stay with the baseball team or leave it to focus on football. He chose the latter, spending more time in the weight room to get in better shape for the game. The baseball team went on to win the school’s first state championship with football teammates Mario Williams and Chris Rodriguez in the starting lineup.
Then, shortly after spring football practice started up, Bendorf felt unusually tired for the first few days and soon learned he had actually come down with a case of mononucleosis.
“It was really just exhaustion,” he said. “I was just really tired. I figured, the first couple days being back in practice after a while, it was just fatigue. Then my tonsils got swollen and disgusting. We went to the hospital that night and I just thought it was a tonsil infection making me tired. Turns out, I had mono. They told me if I kept practicing my spleen could burst and it could be fatal.”
It was a lot to process at once and, in the lineman’s own words, “it really sucked.” But Bendorf had no intention of letting anyone think all that adversity was going to hit him and get away with it.
“You’ve got to overcome adversity and hit it back in the mouth,” he said.
With plenty of younger players and transfers coming into the system, Bendorf took the opportunity to help everyone get more comfortable with the Raiders’ playbooks as much as he could.
“Bringing them up and teaching them how to do things kept me motivated and kept me doing something,” he said. “I kept a positive mindset that God has a plan. Just gotta follow it.”
He credits program alumni who were in those leadership roles when Bendorf himself was an underclassman with showing him how to do things effectively and responsibly as a senior team leader.
“Basically, when I was a freshman and a sophomore, I had guys like Austin Eldridge and Corey St. John who were always respectful to coaches and would nip guys in the bud when it was time to nip guys in the bud,” Bendorf said. “They would come along and help guys when it was time to help them. You’ve got to know when to be mad and yell, and you’ve got to know when to pat a guy on the shoulder and say ‘Hey, man, you’ll get ‘em on the next play.’”
That’s the kind of leader he strives to be every day, and the PCHS coaching staff is grateful to have Bendorf setting such an example for the next generation.
“We had some of the older guys my sophomore year, when they left they told me they didn’t know what they could do until their junior year,” Bendorf said. “So you should never stop working, no matter what. When you get to your senior year, everything becomes clear.”
