Few high schools across America can claim that they have never lost a football game. In fact, the longest winning streak by any established high school football team is 151 games, a record set by Concord de la Salle High School in 2004. However, GDS students can proudly say that their school has never lost a football game, due to the simple fact that they have never played in one.
GDS offers five different fall sports, but football has never been one of them. According to Athletic Director Mike Brooks, that’s for a few reasons, such as a lack of field space and high costs. However, some GDS students have found a way to play the sport they love for a different high school. In a newly founded partnership, seven GDS high-schoolers, and one middle school student, are playing football for the Maret School.
The students are eighth-grader Andrew Korns, freshmen Noah Salazar-Acosta and Nate Galper, sophomores Liam Ireri, Rehan Grewal and Jackson Korns and seniors Tristan Souchaud and Alrick Tougma. The team is coached by Mike Engelberg, the associate athletic director at Maret.
Souchaud was the first GDS student to play football for Maret. He started in 2023, his freshman year. “I’d always played football when I was younger,” Souchaud said. “I played youth [football], and it was just something I was really passionate about.”
Souchaud started looking for a way to play high school football when he was in eighth grade at GDS. “I emailed [former Athletic Director] David [Gillespie] about it, and he was like, ‘That’s not really a thing that has happened,’” Souchaud said. Then, Souchaud said his parents and former Head of School Russell Shaw “had a phone call about [playing football], and then basically after that the school offered their support.”
“It was pretty smooth because Maret is so close, and it’s only like a ten minute drive,” Souchaud said. “If it was some school that was further away, it probably would have not been possible or would have been much more challenging logistically.
“Me and my family reached out to the coach, Mike Engelberg, and he talked about how he was supportive of the idea,” Souchaud said. Souchaud was the only GDS student on the team during his freshman and sophomore years.
“Souchaud kind of opened the door and set the table for everybody by coming in and buying in and just making himself a really critical part of our program,” Engelberg said.
“I’m really grateful and appreciative that I was able to play,” Souchaud said. “My first two years, especially my sophomore year, I had a really awesome experience, and I kind of wanted to share that [with other GDS students].”
“I actually got recommended to join the Maret football team by my teammate Tristan [Souchaud],” Tougma said. “I remember him telling me about the program because GDS doesn’t have a football team.”
Tougma joined the team in 2025. He attended GDS his freshman year before transferring to Our Lady of Good Counsel High School for his sophomore year, in part because he wanted to play football there. Good Counsel’s football team is ranked fifth in Maryland by MaxPreps. Tougma then returned to GDS for his junior and senior years.
Tougma emphasized the differences he observed between the football programs at Maret and Good Counsel. “Everything inside student life at Good Counsel—the lifts, the food they provide, the gear they provide—it’s all very focused towards athletes,” he said. “But here at Maret, they understand that we’re all student-athletes. It’s still very intense here, but it’s not as focused on football. They want to make us not just football players, but better men as well.”
Last spring, Brooks, along with the Maret athletics staff, hosted a football interest meeting for a few GDS students who had already reached out to Brooks about joining another school’s football team.
“I think word of mouth through [Tougma] and [Souchaud] kind of just garnered a little more interest,” Brooks said.
Brooks said younger students were particularly interested in the opportunity; out of the eight GDS students playing football at Maret, six are middle-schoolers or underclassmen.
Although Souchaud has played for Maret’s team since 2023, the GDS and Maret athletic departments never had a formal partnership until this year. Like GDS, Maret plays in the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAC) and the District of Columbia State Athletic Association (DCSAA). According to Brooks, while football has always been an official DCSAA sport, it only regained status as an official MAC sport this year after a two-year hiatus.
Following the 2022 season, the Sidwell Friends School football team dropped out of the MAC after going 0–4 in league play, leaving just four football teams in the MAC. Although football remained an official MAC sport in 2023, the league decided to suspend its football program for the 2024 and 2025 seasons because of the small number of teams. When Sidwell’s football team rejoined the MAC this year, the league reinstated football as an official sport.
Because MAC rules state that a high-schooler can only play sports for their school’s team, none of the GDS students would have been able to play in any MAC games this year without an exemption. However, DCSAA rules allow students to play for a different school if that sport is not offered at their school, which is why Souchaud and Tougma were able to play in non-MAC games at Maret.
Brooks said he met with Engelberg “to put together a proposal or request for a waiver for that rule because Maret had graduated a lot of kids, so they were also in a situation where they needed more kids to fill their roster anyway.”
Once the proposal was finalized and approved by both schools’ athletic departments and heads of school last year, Brooks said he was confident that the two schools would be a good fit.
“The Maret athletic director I’ve known for over 20 years,” Brooks said. “The coach for Maret I’ve known for over 20 years. I’ve coached football against him.” He added, “I felt [Maret] was a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment that mirrored a lot of the things we do.”
The GDS student-athletes seem to agree.
“They were super welcoming,” the elder Korns said. “Immediately the older kids and seniors started talking to us. It’s a super nice team, and it doesn’t feel like we’re outcasts at all.”
“The GDS kids and Maret kids are inseparable when they’re together. Indistinguishable. You can’t really tell who goes to which school,” Engelberg said. “At the end of the day, they’re just kids on a high school football team.”
Despite the players’ enthusiasm, there are some logistical challenges that come with the partnership. “Their practice starts at 3:15, and the bus picks us up at 3:30, so we’ll either miss film or a lift,” the elder Korns said. A Maret bus picks students up at GDS and drives them to Maret or to Barrett Fields, a D.C. athletics complex owned by Maret.
Brooks said participating students also miss a lot of class time for games. “It’s not just like they’re missing the last 25 minutes of class—sometimes they’re getting out quite early,” he said. “I think that we need to make sure that our students participating are, number one, committed to their academics.” Brooks said participating students should be “proactive in their communication with their teachers.”
Despite the logistical challenges, Brooks said the partnership has been a “great success.”
Engelberg agreed. “These kids are able to stay at a school they love and play a sport they love, which, without [the partnership], they wouldn’t be able to do,” he said.
Director of Student Community Programming Bobby Asher said he was very supportive of the partnership. “I feel like our kids should be able to pursue their passions, whether they’re athletic, musical or artistic,” he said. “I think the academics are important, but I also think some of these other things teach life lessons and bring joy.
“Watching the GDS students hanging out on the sideline, pregame and postgame with the Maret kids, was really cool,” Asher said, referring to Maret’s 42–7 win against Sidwell Friends School on Saturday, which he attended. “Expanding what we call the community is a really nice side benefit.”
In the future, Engelberg doesn’t see a limit to how many GDS students could play for Maret. “If there are kids at GDS who want to commit to playing football and put in the time and effort, I will take them,” he said. “I’m willing to let anyone try.”
The Maret football team will play St. Albans at Maret on Oct. 31.