Christian Meneses sees them around town. Shoot, even’s even got one coaching his position.

You know, guys from back in the day, former Plattsmouth football players and current community members who would love to see the old alma mater make history this fall, winning the program’s first-ever state title. It’s a dream they share with Christian.

“I believe this town deserves something like a state football championship. They have been so supportive of us and we know the town would go crazy if we could make it happen,” says Christian, a 2020 all-state running back, his position coach being Steve Schneider, who was on that 1979 team.

Ah yes, the 1979 team. The only Plattsmouth team to reach a state playoff final. To this day members of that team, including Steve Schneider, are held up as football gods. It was a long time ago but it’s still a big deal around town.

The 1979 team almost had some company last fall. With Christian carrying the ball on seemingly every play the Blue Devils won their way into the Class B semifinals by upsetting No. 1 seed Bennington before losing to Aurora, the eventual runner-up. Plattsmouth also finished the season 8-3, a far cry from what many projected for Big Blue.

“People thought we were going to be mediocre at best, just another Plattsmouth year, but we had other ideas. We had guys who had worked hard and I loved our teamwork. We knew we were going to be better than people thought,” says Christian, who goes 5-foot-10, 190-pounds. Look, one-ninety is nothing to sneeze at but the kid carried the ball an average of 29 times per game, with gusts of up to 42 in one game, busting his way for 1,780 yards and 20 TDs. All-state, that’s how you become all-state.

“I know in my position there is a lot of weight on my shoulders because we are a running team and if I don’t do my job we don’t win,” says Christian. “It takes a lot of mental and physical preparation for that many carries but I will do just about anything to win, or more importantly, not lose. I hate losing. And if that means carrying the ball 40 times and playing defense and cramping up three times in the fourth quarter but we win, sign me up. I’m in.”

“And having a great line like I do also make my job easier.”

When Christian played his first organized football he wound up at tight end. In a running offense, like, really serious running offense. Not for him.

“I wanted to score touchdowns so I moved to running back,” he says. “Making that change meant even back then the game was faster than normal but I grew up playing football against my older brothers in the backyard and I guess you could say I still have that backyard style today.”

Later on there was another layer applied to his preparation for becoming a workhorse varsity running back. Rugby. Yep, Christian followed his older brothers’ footsteps and became a rugby player, joining the high school team as an eighth-grader.

“My brother (Noah) got me into rugby and he got me on the high school team, saying I was ready even as an eighth grader. And he was right because I started right away,” remembers Christian. “There is no hiding in rugby, when you have the ball you have no blockers and you have to learn to how to deal with getting hit, or making people miss when they try to hit you. I think all that backyard football helped prepare me for rugby, and that prepared me for high school football.”

Another major reason Christian enjoyed his rookie season of high school rugby was it was the only time he was on the same team as Noah. “We were pretty great. We went 13-0 and beat every team we played by, like, 60 points or more.”

Christian was born in Omaha and comes from a big family with two older brothers, two younger brothers and a sister. For fun he likes to go bass fishing, making the most of several productive ponds around the Plattsmouth area. He’s a good student with a 3.25 GPA and was in Boy Scouts until just two years ago. That makes sense since his older brothers were all Scouts and his mother was a troop counselor.

Entering what figures to be a highly productive senior season Christian currently only holds one offer, from Iowa Western Community College, where Noah played football until a recent and unfortunate Achilles injury. “My plan is to ball out my senior season and see if some offers come to me, but if not I am comfortable and happy to play at Iowa Western.” He plans to study sports medicine in college.

Plattsmouth is going to have another really good team again in 2021, that’s a pretty universal thought. This much is certain, let’s just say Christian and Big Bad Plattsmouth plan on showing up on Friday nights well into November.

“We have talent and we love to play physical football, that hasn’t changed since last season. People are going to view us different after what we did last year but we just need to keep working hard and showing the fight we did last season. None of us care about ratings or scores, only winning, one game at a time.

“We plan to come right at people. It won’t be nice.”