Woodinville star Andre Dillard will play in Super Bowl LVII

WOODINVILLE, Wash. — Woodinville High School loves its falcons, but this week they’re flying with a different bird.

“Every kid in this weight room is (an) Eagles fan right now,” said Woodinville offensive line coach Mike Monan.

Hawk Green becomes Philly Green thanks to a distinguished graduate.

“On Friday, our principal and secretary came down to surprise me and they were wearing Dillard jerseys,” said Woodinville head coach Wayne Maxwell.

The shirts are Andre Dillard shirts.

Dillard is a former Woodinville student who is now on football’s biggest stage.

He’s essentially the sixth man on Philadelphia’s wild offensive line.

At 6ft 5 and 315 pounds, it’s easy to picture Dillard as a former big man on campus, but Monan said that’s not the Andre he remembers.

“Nobody likes a skinny Santa, I had to make him fatter,” Monan said.

Monan estimates that Dillard started his varsity career at just 200 pounds.

His trick was to give him treats as a reward for transporting defenses.

“If we get 10 pancakes in a game, the offensive lineman stuffs a defensive lineman, we go to Dairy Queen and we get blizzards,” Monan said. “(Andre) would get 10 in a game alone, so he would drag me there. I’d spend $80 for the kids to buy Blizzards for all the O-Linemen. Any chance he got, he would eat.”

Andre was feasting both on and off the field and college coaches were beginning to take notice.

“The Eastern (Washington) offensive line coach got his big recruit on the D-line for one-on-one and Andre just flat-backed the kid. The offensive line coach on site offered Andre.”

“I expected more to come, but we weren’t sure,” said Mitch Dilliard, Andre’s father. “Until we made that visit to WSU.”

Mitch Dillard was a cougar walk-on in the 1980s. He said he’s excited for his son to follow in his footsteps, even though their paths have been very different.

“I could go anywhere I wanted because no one wanted me,” Mitch Dilliard said. “He was able to go where they wanted him on full scholarship.”

The scholarship was well-deserved as Andre Dilliard was a three-year starter at Washington State, allowed just one sack his senior year in 2018, and became the school’s first first-round draft pick since 2014.

“He just kept getting bigger,” former head coach Mike Leach said at the time. “He’s got great feet and he was just really solid.”

“I thought he was something special. And he’s turning out to be something special,” said Matthew Dillard.

But the work is not finished yet.

“I want him to get the ring,” Mitch Dillard said.

It’s a ring that would undoubtedly ring the bell throughout western Washington.

“He never forgets us here in Woodinville,” said Monan.