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BREESE — has found his happy place since he was young just by reaching into a massive bag of Lego pieces.

Soon to be a Breese Central High graduate, Huegen still is an avid fan of the plastic bricks and has spent hours building countless objects.

Some of the pieces he still routinely uses in his Lego builds come from a futuristic science fiction aircraft — the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.

“My mom always jokes with me that I am a nerd,” said Huegen, Breese Central’s 2025 Post-Dispatch Scholar Athlete.

One day the Lego enthusiast could build a skyscraper that towers over his other creations.

That build would resemble a cross between a current fighter jet and something he’s seen on the silver screen.

Nothing is out of the realm of possibilities for the three-sport Breese Central senior. But what really intrigues him is tackling problems for which an obvious solution isn’t available.

Questions that engineers live to answer. Not content with keeping his quest for solutions on the ground, he turned his attention toward the fighter jets that have flown over his house in Clinton County.

“I like buildings, but just where I live is actually in the flight path, with Scott Air Force Base being the major relocator of all the forces,” Huegen said. “We have all the cool jets that everybody loves to see. The helicopters, they’ll fly over our house all the time.”

One of the coolest jets he ever caught casting its vast shadow over Breese was the secretive B-2 stealth bomber.

Or what he called the “Flying Doritos.”

That form was the antithesis of what a traditional fighter jet looks like and has a special place in Huegen’s heart.

Though he never was caught watching the fighter jets during a Cougars football practice, Huegen always has his eyes turned to the sky.

His grandfather, Delmar Hall, inspired his love of fighter jets and football. Hall played “winger” on the gridiron, a position more akin to today’s tight end, before flying fighter planes in the Air Force.

Despite battling stage 4 cancer and living a considerable distance from the Clinton County school, Hall attended all of Central’s games this season as Huegen starred on the defensive line.

“He’s always been there no matter what happened, and it’s really shown me that he’s somebody who really cares about you and will do anything in his might to be with you, and that’s somebody I want to be,” Huegen said.

The true grit attitude his grandfather shows on a daily basis powered Huegen early in his football career.

Cougars football coach Brian Short didn’t know if Huegen would make it on the gridiron as a freshman.

“He has had a heck of a progression as a player,” Short said. “He’s obviously smart and hangs onto everything you say. As a junior, he made jumps on special teams, and then he was a standout offensive and defensive lineman for us this year. I’m overwhelmingly proud of him.”

Huegen talks about his grandfather playing football through an injury where he could stick his tongue through a hole in his lip.

Though he never had to play through that kind of injury, his obsessive work ethic would have pushed him to play even if he did.

“His determination, work ethic, and grit separate him,” Short said. “I know we had a lot of guys who got the awards and accolades, but without Anthony, we’re not the same.”

Last season as the Cougars posted an 11-1 record and reached the Class 4A state quarterfinals, Huegen racked up 50 tackles and four sacks.

He’ll take that tenacity to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, next year as he pursues aerospace engineering.

Due to his asthma, Huegen sidelined his dreams of blasting around the skies at Mach 2 as a pilot and turned his attention to designing the next generation of fighter jets.

A nod to his early roots with his Lego bricks.

“I love to venture out,” Huegen said. “I’m not artistic in the sense of drawing things. But, you know, designing anything that looks cool but still functional has been something I’ve tried to achieve.”

Calculus teacher Greg Kruse points out Huegen’s bulldog-like mentality on the football field is evident in the classroom.

“I think that mentality he has is what drives him,” Kruse said. “And he’ll keep working at it something until he gets it, and that’s just work, his work ethic.”

Despite the immense workload Huegen takes on every day, Kruse never sees the senior stressed as he tackles differential equations and math problems that would leave most people bewildered and stumped.

He does feed into Huegen’s love of science fiction by saying a little phrase before every test to help ease any stress that may be building inside.

“I always tell them before they take a test, ‘May the force be with them,’ “ Kruse said. “The kids laugh about it, and it helps kind of reduce their stress level for some of the kids.”

But if Huegen is ever stressed, that unrelenting work ethic he’s demonstrated thus far has been his fallback.

It’s a trait that has teachers convinced about Huegen’s future prospects.

“Whatever he decides to do, he’s going to be successful,” Kruse said.