An angel has lifted Jaydon Goebel to heights he once could only dream about

Some 10 weeks after scoring his first touchdown Jaydon Goebel remains amazed at the success he’s enjoying at Twin Valley.

He grew up loving football and loving carrying the rock. He played side-by-side with Dominic Caruso in youth ball, forming an unstoppable backfield.

The game began to get away from him when he reached junior high. He put on weight, lost a step and lost confidence. He sat the bench as a freshman, then left the game to concentrate on baseball.

“There was nowhere for me (in football),” he said the other night as the fourth-seeded Raiders tuned up for their District 3 Class 4A quarterfinal Friday against fifth-seeded Milton Hershey. “I didn’t see a future in football.”

He never left the game completely, mind you. He remained close with his football friends and showed up on Friday nights to cheer for them. Last season, watching the Raiders crash the district playoff party for the first time, he had pangs to get back out there.

“I’d see a big hit and (think), ‘I wish I was still able to hit people like that,’ ” he said.

When Brett Myers became Raiders coach he made it a point to get Goebel back in uniform. He saw something Jaydon didn’t.

“When Coach Myers said I was going to be a running back, I thought he was insane,” Goebel confessed.

He was excited — and scared. Following Caruso, who seemingly set another record every time he touched the ball?

“Very intimidating,” admitted Goebel, who wasn’t so sure he still had what it took to compete in football much less try to replace Caruso.

He scored the first touchdown of the season for the Raiders’ in their 39-12 win at Schuylkill Valley. He’s added 13 since.

He’s had help from above. An angel, he says, often carries him into the end zone.

His mom Dana, his biggest supporter when he first began playing, is there to power him through.

“When I score, she’s helping me,” he said, “pushing me in.”

Dana Goebel, a mother of five, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011. The cancer metastasized to her brain. She died in shortly before Jaydon entered third grade.

He and his siblings were devastated, as was the Twin Valley community. Dana Goebel was one of the pillars of the youth football program. She was there for her kids and for others.

Now she’s lifting up Jaydon, helping turn his senior season into more than meets the eye each Friday.

“She’s here with me the entire time,” Jaydon said. “She’s the loudest supporter without even being here. She’s still with us; she’s still here for it all.”

He smiles broadly as he talks about his mother and about the inspiration she’s been for him. Her little “buttercup” has grown to 6-2, 220 pounds. The little brother who used to get knocked around regularly in the back yard by Chris and Danny, each of whom played for the Raiders, is now delivering the blows as Twin Valley’s goal-line go-to guy.

He has rushed for 715 yards and leads team with 125 carries. He’s had a pair of 100-yard games, including the regular season finale against rival Daniel Boone when he scored three touchdowns.

“This is what he’s been looking forward to his whole life,” Danny Goebel said. “This is what he’s lived for.”

Jaydon admits he didn’t see this coming. He’s known success in baseball: He was an all-division catcher last season and batted .315. But football? As a running back? He thought those days were over, especially after his weight ballooned to 255 during the COVID shutdown.

Realizing he needed a change he began working out with older sister Jackie, a former track star at Twin Valley, changed his diet and dropped nearly 40 pounds in six months.

“A lot of people would (look at him and) think of him as a tight end, or a fullback,” Myers said. “To me he’s a tailback who can get downill and get going.”

Myers compares Goebel favorably to Tymir Jackson, one of his do-it-all players at Middletown. Jackson was a standout on both sides of the ball for a championship team.

Goebel has shown the same kind of versatility.

“Jaydon punts for us,” Myers said. “He could long snap if we needed him to. He catches everything. He plays defensive end in rush downs. He’s physically strong enough to be a guard or tight end. He could play linebacker, safety, even quarterback if we needed him to. He’s just one of those guys that naturally has it.”

Goebel, who played some quarterback as a ninth-grader, even threw a scoring pass earlier this season on a two-point conversion off a reverse.

Now the kids in the student section he once cheered alongside are chanting his name.

“This is such a good feeling, being able to go out there knowing that eyes are going to be on me, that I’m going to be able to help my team,” Goebel said. “Coach Myers told me how much fun I would have (playing football), and he wasn’t wrong.”