Football has been played at Penn Charter since 1887, yet the school and its student athletes are still discovering new ways to make history through the sport.
While siblings playing on the same or separate athletic teams within the PC ecosystem is not a foreign prospect, the Albecks – senior Damian and sophomore Cecilia – have managed to tread new ground on the football field during the 2025 season.
Damian is in his fourth year with the program, a current captain and 6-foot-3, 300-pound offensive lineman for the Quakers. What makes his senior season different, however, is that Cecilia has joined her big brother on the football team as the primary kicker of PC’s extra points whenever opting for one after scoring a touchdown. Cecilia is not the first female to play on the school football team, nor are the Albecks the first sibling duo to suit up for the Quakers during the same season.
However, Cecilia Albeck is the first female football player to score points for Penn Charter, and she and Damian also represent the first brother-sister combination in the program’s long history.
“Our parents keep bringing up that she’s doing this for me for a big senior year send-off,” Damian said of Cecilia during a recent on-campus interview. “I’m not taking it for granted that she’s on the team.”
“I’ve always wanted to play football,” added Cecilia, also a member of the PC girls soccer team during the fall. “They were allowing girls to play football, so why not go play football where I’ll get to be with my brother? He’s there to protect me if anything happens.”
Damian and Cecilia have always been close. Two grades apart growing up in the Lehigh Valley’s Northampton Area School District, the siblings have multiple unique ways in which they communicate with one another, from a special good luck handshake they perform at the start every day to a commemorative celebration any time that Cecilia successfully converts an extra point.
The two came to Penn Charter at the start of the 2022 school year, Damian’s freshman and Cecilia’s seventh grade years. They both expressed how refreshing it was to attend a school with much smaller class sizes than they were accustomed to, allowing them more room to craft more meaningful relationships with teachers and classmates.
“We went from having 30-plus kids in a class to an average of 12, with my largest class here being maybe 16,” said Damian, who listed physics as his favorite PC class. “My relationships with my teachers are closer because I get to meet with them outside of class, which is really nice.”
Cecilia has had a similar experience as a student in her four years at PC.
“In public school, it felt like the kids didn’t care [as much] about classes and teachers were just there to be there,” said Cecilia, a lover of studying biology. “Here, everyone is engaged and wants to learn and get better. The change has been amazing.”
As tight as the siblings are and as special as the Penn Charter experience has been for both, neither ever envisioned playing on the same team together. Being members of opposite genders had never previously afforded much opportunity to do so, and Cecilia in particular already had her hands full with another fall sport. The possibility never seemed logical or feasible, until the tide slowly started shifting last summer.
Somewhere along the line, Damian and Cecilia hatched the idea, which Damian would then bring to the football program’s new head coach, CJ Yespelkis, who had recently been hired after a long stint as an assistant coach at another school in the Inter-Ac League. Yespelkis was indeed new to Penn Charter, but he had a strong idea about the school’s value of equality and its progressive approach, including athletics. It’s part of what made the opportunity to become PC’s head coach so appealing in the first place.
“I got the job, and at the beginning of the summer, Damian told me his sister was interested in working out with the team as a kicker, and could she come to workouts?” Yespelkis recounted in a phone interview. “She started showing up and went through every football workout; she wasn’t cutting any corners and did the same conditioning and same workouts as everyone else.”
Yespelkis quickly noticed that the Albeck siblings gravitated towards each other when placed in a team environment together.
“They seem like best friends, and that sibling bond really shines through,” he said. “Damian’s first thought is always about Cecilia, and he’s an awesome big brother to have. It’s tough to read sometimes how much she loves doing this because she loves kicking a football or more because they are so close and want to spend this time together.”
Yespelkis also affirmed that it was easy to sign off on Cecilia being a member of the team because she’s a legitimately good kicker with a strong leg who has been able to convert extra points at a flawless clip this season. The team only has her kick PAT’s and not field goals, kickoffs or punts to protect her from taking unnecessarily hard hits that could put her safety at risk, but the extra points alone have been a rousing success.
While she said she will always feel strange kicking while wearing a helmet or wearing pants and pads as elements of a sports uniform, Cecilia also raved at how supportive Yespelkis, his coaching staff and all of her new football teammates have been of her trailblazing endeavor.
“The other day I made a kick, but a kid [on the other team] hit me late, and one of our players, Nate Hartman, went up to him and said ‘Hey man, don’t do that,’” Cecilia said. “I went to the sideline and the whole team was saying they would talk to [the player]. Honestly, the atmosphere is so much fun. It’s amazing.”
A brother-sister combination on the same football team is an example of Penn Charter’s pioneering through the centuries. While their parents – mom Francesca in particular – were initially nervous regarding the experiment, Damian and Cecilia’s playing football together has since transitioned to a point of pride their parents mention to friends, coworkers and family members.
Now in their fourth year as PC student-athletes, the impact the Albecks have had at the school has reverberated throughout the community.
“Having Damian and Cecilia on the same team shows the family spirit that runs through Penn Charter athletics,” Director of Athletics Daniel DiBerardinis said. “Cecilia's impact goes far beyond kicking and putting up points on the scoreboard – she’s showing our community that there’s truly something for everyone in athletics at PC.
“This story captures what makes Penn Charter special. We encourage students to pursue their passions fully, and the Albecks are a perfect example of that. Stories like this remind me why Penn Charter is such a unique place to lead. Our students are writing stories that reflect courage, community and resilience to go after your dreams.”
Outside of the athletics department, the Albecks’ teachers and advisors spin similar tales of a pair of siblings that strive in everything they do at Penn Charter.
“Damian Albeck is always putting in his maximum energy into his academics, athletic training, running his own lawn mowing business and working with young campers over the summer,” said Eric Furda, senior associate director of College Counseling. “He is protective of his younger sister. His character, commitment and strong values stand out.”
“I have had the pleasure of working with both Damian and Cecilia in my guitar class,” said Middle and Upper School teacher Michael Roche. “Both are polite and courteous students who really seem to enjoy the arts. Damian performed in a few of his peers' filmmaking videos and did a very nice job. Cecilia is highly motivated in guitar class and has a wonderful ear for music. It is also nice to see siblings who have such a great bond, and they bring a great energy to PC.”
With PC/GA Day just around the corner and Damian’s football career at Penn Charter winding down, the question now becomes does Cecilia continue playing football next season when her big brother is off at college?
For now, it’s a maybe. Already busy with soccer and her schoolwork, Cecilia Albeck no longer has anything to prove to anybody on a football field. She’s done her job successfully and is grateful for the opportunity to have shared the same field as her brother, rather than simply watching him from the stands.
“It originally started out that she was only going to play my senior year,” Damian said. “But the more she plays, the more she loves it. I can tell.”
“I don’t know yet,” Cecilia said of her football future. “It’s definitely a possibility. I love being really busy and having things to do – going to soccer practice and then going to football right after. I might play next year.”
She’ll for sure play both on PC/GA Day, as both the girls soccer and football teams will be depending on her contributions.
“It came so fast,” she said of the 139th celebration, to be held on Nov. 8 at Penn Charter this year. “I’m so excited.”
– Ed Morrone OPC ’04