With the world’s largest artillery base just across the street, Lawton is like a revolving door. Families connected with Fort Sill are routinely shipped out, and consequently, families routinely move in. High school coaches are used to having move-ins. Sometimes they benefit the team, sometimes they don’t. When it comes to senior Dominique Whaley, the former applies.
With his stepfather and mother, Kelius and Damaris, in the Army, Whaley has had to pull up stakes more than one. His most recent move came last year when he and his family moved from Germany to Lawton. It usually takes time to settle into a school, and even more time to be accepted on an athletic team. That wasn’t the case where Whaley is concerned.
“Very popular among the kids,” said Mac head coach Ernie Manning of the 188-pound speedster receiver. “He was able to fit real well. The entire team really accepted him.”
Whaley wasn’t accepted just as a player, but as an individual as well.
“I really respect him,” Manning said. “He is really a fine individual. He does things right. I just don’t see him losing his composure. I know he’s not influenced by outside forces to do anything wrong. He’s his own man.”
Even before he moved to Lawton, Whaley knew what to expect. Football in Germany is nothing compared to football in Oklahoma.
“I knew even before I came here that I was going to have to take football more seriously than I had been,” said the soft-spoken senior. “My coach in Germany told me that I’d have to take every moment I got seriously.
“I also knew I was going to have to prove myself in order to get playing time because I was coming in as a junior they didn’t know much about me, about how I played.”
It didn’t take long. Whaley was first tried at running back, then because of his speed was switched to a receiver.
“They kept moving me around,” Whaley said. “They said they needed me more at receiver so I moved from running back. I wasn’t sure why, and it really didn’t matter to me. I was just going to go and play where they wanted me, where I could help the team the most.
“They got a couple of looks at me (at receiver) in the Northwest Classen game (last year). That was first time I touched the ball, and I scored. So they started looking into me more. Then, later into the season, one of key receivers got hurt (Garrett Barnes). So they moved me over there. Now I’m back where I originally started as a receiver.”
That means Whaley didn’t have to study plays for just one position, but three different ones. In Manning’s complicated offense that’s asking a lot.
“It was not hard for me to learn the offense,” said Whaley. “I know I picked up the plays real fast and I’m not really sure why. Like last year, I had to learn the plays at running back, then at one receiver and then at another. I had to learn all those plays, but for some reason I did real good at picking up those plays.”
Whaley is one of the reasons Mac is 5-0. But 5-0 means very little to Whaley. In fact, Whaley doesn’t see it as 5-0.
“We may be 5-0, but I feel like we’ve won only two games, Eisenhower and Lawton High,” Whaley said. “That’s because we played the entire game with intensity.”
“We need to keep our intensity for the whole game. Because it seems like, and I’ve heard this from my parents and others, we’ll be in it the first half and the second half we’ll die out and let them (opponents) come back. It’s been happening for a while now. None of us on this team is proud of that.
“We had meeting and talked about how we’re only beating teams now because we have more talent. We’re not really playing as one unit. We said as soon as we play a team with as much talent as us, it’s going to be a competition and we might not win that game because we’re not playing as unit. This Duncan game is a perfect example to see if we’re going to play as a unit.”
If Whaley has anything to do with it, they’ll be playing as a “unit.”
WHALEY