Sports Editor
Throughout his high school career, senior Boxer Kopcsak-Yeung has excelled in both football and track. He played football from a young age, following in his father and grandfather’s footsteps. He said, “I wanted to play football as soon as I could walk because my dad played it. My grandpa played, all of my family had played so I was like ‘I’m going to play football.’” Kopcsak-Yeung found his passion through flag football, and then continued with tackle football in high school.
Since childhood, Kopcsak-Yeung played baseball alongside football, but a torn labrum during his sophomore year season with LGHS landed him on the sidelines. Friends of his, alumni Levi Romero and Wil Brennan, urged him to join the LGHS Track and Field team in the offseason. During his junior year, Kopcsak-Yeung jump started his soon-to-be successful running career. Throughout both the 2023 and 2024 track seasons, he competed in the 100 yard, 200 yard, and 4 by 100 yard races, as well as the long jump. Expanding his horizons, he even began learning how to pole vault. He said, “It’s cool; I still don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m getting over bars, so clearly I’m doing something right.”
Kopcsak-Yeung recorded a monumental season with LGHS Varsity Football this past season as their running back, with 28 touchdowns, averaging 7.2 yards per carry, and 110.2 rushing yards per game. When asked about a favorite memory from this year, he reminisced about the Cats’ game against Liberty in the fall, “We were down by 28 at halftime; we went in expecting to be the better team, [but] we took it a bit lighter than we should’ve. We [were] getting our butts kicked, but somehow we came back and won it. You couldn’t stop us.”
Football served as more than a high school sport for Kopcsak-Yeung, becoming a family tradition. He noted that he loved the community involvement in the sport, and how the town rallied around football games. When he was younger, he remembered that “I was in middle school and I was with my parents because I wasn’t a student yet and we would sit next to people that didn’t even have kids at the school but they were just coming to watch the game, and I thought that was really cool.”
A skier and snowboarder since childhood, Kopcsak-Yeung loves spending time on the slopes with friends and family. He enjoys surfing as well, staying active outdoors. His current favorite class is his Honors Economics class with Mr. Homa.
Kopcsak-Yeung plans to continue his academic and athletic career at California Polytechnic State University SLO. He currently plans to major in nutrition, but has interests in political science too.
Congrats Kopcsak-Yeung for an outstanding high school career, and wish him the best of luck in his future!
Categories: School Sports, Sports