Integrity, leadership, talent and perseverance; those are just some of the many adjectives that could be used to describe Danvers' senior lineman Isaac Flores. 

The dedicated athlete moved from Stoughton to Onion Town with his family two years ago and has been a welcome addition to the Falcons' family ever since.

Prior to arriving at his new school, Flores had not played a minute of competitive football. But in the two years since, he's grown both on and off the field and was recently rewarded for his efforts by being voted a team captain by his gridiron teammates. 

"Right from the beginning he just came in, put his head down and worked hard," said Danvers' head football coach Ryan Nolan. "He's very personable and he's a great friend and teammate to everyone. Outside of being new to football and new to Danvers, he came in as a kid who was just willing to work hard, be very outgoing, and he's the type of person you wanted to be around."

Making a difficult transition look smooth

While Flores' transition to a new town, new school and new sport and team may appear to be seamless on the surface, nothing about his journey has been easy. 

The move was one thing, and sometimes a change of scenery can prove beneficial to young student athletes. But what happened just months before his family relocated from Stoughton is something that would effectively break many people's competitive spirit. Flores suffered a tragedy nobody his age should have to endure: he lost four of his good friends from home in a car accident. 

"They were older than me and always took care of me growing up," said Flores. "They were always by my side, always had my back with everything and it played a huge part in me joining the team because a lot of it had to do with honoring them and keeping their memory alive. We were always really, really close."

The tragic loss of his dear friends — Nick, David, Chris and Eric — prompted Flores to try out for the football team at Danvers High, a sport that two of those fallen companions competed in. He used the devastating circumstances as motivation, and quickly became an irreplaceable piece for his new squad.  

In his short time with the Falcons' football program, Flores has shown intelligence, dedication and of course leadership while helping his team to a 9-2 record last fall. 

"I think the No. 1 thing is he's a smart kid so he picked up on schemes and techniques pretty quickly. Another big thing was he really worked in the weight room and at practice and wrestled as well, which certainly helped," said Nolan. Flores went 16-4 as a junior on the mat last winter. 

"He's super committed to the weight room; he added 40 pounds to his frame in two years and has always been 100 percent committed to strength and conditioning."

Regularly suiting up at left and right guard, Flores plays an integral role in what Danvers' does. He plays a position that's often overlooked at the high school level, and really any competitive level of football, but make no mistake about it: Flores' dirty work goes a long way towards winning football games. 

Has he gone through his share of ups and downs over the past two years? Absolutely. But he's managed to make incredible strides in that time and is now poised for a superb farewell campaign this winter (should football in Massachusetts be deemed safe enough to play). 

"When I came over here I'd only played baseball but I was looking to branch out and meet some new people and get settled, and some of the guys said I should come out for football 'cus I was pretty big," said Flores. "Everyone was really cool about it and accepting and it just took off from there. It's probably the best decision I could've made."

"The hardest part was probably just the physicality of it all," added Flores. "Every day taking hits, and the conditioning, too. I had joined two weeks into September of my sophomore year so they were well into the season already and mentally I had to test myself, too."

Honoring his friends

Today, and every game since he joined the squad, Flores sports his four friends' names on his cleats. It serves as both motivation, honor and a reminder to give it his all every time he steps on the turf, because you never know when your last game might come. 

"Every day I get to memorialize them and be a part of them on the field," said Flores. "It gives me motivation and strength when I'm feeling down."

Flores hopes he and his fellow Falcon teammates get one last chance to lace 'em up before the 2021 school year is done. But if it's one thing he's learned, it's to cherish every moment and make the most of every situation. Whether that's on the football field or outside in the real world, that sentiment rings true. 

"We have hope that we'll have a season and we just want to go out there and not have any regrets, put it all on the line every game and in practices too, because under the circumstances right now you never know what you're going to get," he said. "So now it's, 'How can we make the best of it?'."

Danvers has yet to round out the team captains for the hopeful upcoming season, but starting things off with Flores appears to be a no-brainer. 

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