By Tom Nader
Publisher and Editor

Jack Eye has been waiting for this.
After a black cloud of injuries rained on the Bombers’ aspirations in 2023, the team enters 2024 in a completely different place.
Healthy.
Including Eye, who missed the first three games last season, then remained slowed upon returning, after he fractured his hip in the team’s final preseaon scrimmage.
He was not the only forced to painfully watch from the sidelines a year ago.
So did starting linemen Kaishawn Scales and Omar Duran.
So did starting linebacker Brandon Petrich.
So did starting fullback Jayquon Smith.
Few teams in the state could claim more cruel luck than the Bombers.
But they did what a Windham team always does: They kept working hard.
They knew that brighter days were waiting for them in the future.
Those days are now.
Eye is leading the way.
At 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds, the senior running back and linebacker plays with a style that is more like those of yesteryear.
“Jack is a throwback player,” Windham head coach and Jack’s father Jake Eye said. “He embraces the physicality of the sport.”
It is the only way he has ever known how to play.
A quiet leader on the field, it is how Eye expresses himself while playing.
“The adrenaline of being on the field is unlike anything else,” Jack Eye said. “To be out there playing the game I love, with all my best friends lining up next to me, is what I look forward to. I feel like I can express myself on Friday nights when I am out there playing.”
The expressions are memorable.
Despite his shortened and injury-mired season, Eye led the team in rushing (684 yards), touchdowns (12) and tackles (78).
The individual numbers are meaningful, but Eye said he is more determined to change a team-oriented number this season.
Wins.
The Bombers won just two games in 2023, but now that the roster is healthy, featuring 13 seniors and depth across all skill positions, and preseason practices that have been described as excellent, the 2024 Bombers appear on a completely different trajectory.
An additional element adding to the attitude of the team is that coach Eye says he thinks his senior class realizes that the time is now.
“You know, you come in as freshmen and players feel like they have all the time in the world, but life moves quick,” coach Eye said. “So, here we are, they are seniors now, and I think they even realize that this is it. The group has worked extremely hard to have an opportunity to have a special season. The senior class continue to be great leaders for our younger players, who are gaining valuable lessons from watching how they approach everything.”
A healthy approach.
And hopefully it stays that way.