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Just keep smiling: High school football player gives incredible postgame interview

Apollos Hester was pumped up. His high school football team had just rallied from a 28-14 halftime deficit – but this kid would've been pumped up whether they won or lost.

His energy is off the charts, as he showed in this postgame interview with TWC News Austin:

"All right, well, at first we started slow, we started real slow, and you know, that's all right, that's OK, because sometimes in life, you're gonna start slow. That's OK. We told ourselves, 'Hey, we're gonna start slow, we're gonna keep going fast. We're gonna start slow, but we're always, always gonna finish fast. No matter what the score was, we're gonna finish hard, we're gonna finish fast.'

Yeah, they had us the first half, I'm not gonna lie, they had us. We weren't defeated, but they had us. But it took guts, it took an attitude—that's all it takes. That's all it takes to be successful is an attitude. And that's what our coach told us. He said, he said, 'Hey, it's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be hard. You're gonna go out there, you're gonna battle, you're gonna fight, you're gonna do it for one another. Do it for each other, you're gonna do it for yourself, you're gonna do it for us, and you're gonna go out with this win.' And we believed that, we truly did. And it's an awesome feeling. It's an awesome feeling when you truly believe that you're going to be successful."

If all it takes is an attitude, this kid certainly has the right one.

"And if you still lose the game, you continue to get each other's back, and that's what we realized. Win or lose, we're realized that we're going to be alright, and it's going to be okay and we're gonna keep smiling."

But that night, they did win, and, as he said, it was awesome. The East View (Texas) Patriots rallied back to a 42-41 win over Vandegrift on Friday night, with Hester adding one touchdown. After talking about the game, Hester moved on to life advice:

"You can do anything you put your mind to. Never give up on your dreams. Keep smiling. No matter what you're going through, if you fall down, just get up ... it's gonna be alright. Just keep smiling, man."

It's impossible not to smile after that interview.

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Danielle Elliot is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at delliot@yahoo-inc.com or follow her on Twitter!

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