TRADITION NEVER GRADUATES by Coach Jim Massaro
"Tradition never graduates," that's the rally cry for this year's upcoming season. It will be printed on backs of tee shirts, banners, and scoreboards. For the last two years our record has been 22 wins and two losses with one state championship, and last year making it to the semi-final game before being knocked out. When you achieve all that success in two seasons you are blessed with some very talented footballers. The last two years combined have seen twelve of our players receive college scholarships. Four have gone on to play division one football. Now here lies the problem: on a team with thirty-three players, we graduated thirty of them. It is a great graduation record, but not much experience left for the next season.
Where do we start? First, let's go over the returnees. Our quarterback is back to start his third year for us. Having played in a state championship game as a sophomore, we hope he can draw on all of that experience and have a breakout year. Going out of character, our coach will also play him at safety this season. The next returning player is our halfback and linebacker--two very important positions on our team. You see, on offense we run the wing-tee, and on defense we are in angle and slant, so it is important to have a player with experience at those two positions. The one thing I forgot to mention is that in the first game of the season last year he tore his ACL. So we really do not know what he can give us. Next returnee-well, let's just say he is a certainty at six foot, two hundred and twenty-four pounds of bone crushing power. He's both our fullback and linebacker and he will be ready to go. With three positions taken care of, we must fill in the other nineteen.
As we started to evaluate our team during the summer program, a few loose terms seemed to describe them best: green as a granny smith, green as bananas, and-on-and-on. We have compared our line to that of a midget football team's line: defensive backs that don't know where the flats or outer third are. But this is high school so there isn't any recruiting; you have to play with the hand that you given.
We realize that we will have to concentrate most of our time teaching before coaching. Football 101 here we come. Given the size of our players, throughout the whole summer we preached to them that they are not going to run people over, so they better pay attention to the little things like technique, and finesse. For what we lack in talent this group is the hardest working I have seen. With opening night just ten days away and against one of the toughest opponents of the year, the kids know they have their work cut out for them.
As always, throughout summer training, former players have returned to say hello or work with the kids. With their presence at camp, we are trying to establish the attitude that tradition never graduates. Let the team know that there is a whole family of players past and present there to support them. Insert in them the same pride in the program that other, more talented teams have had. Let them know that there is a whole community behind them. All they have to do is work hard and believe in themselves and their teammates. And good things will happen. Hey, no doubt with all the past success there is a bull's eye on our backs and teams are looking for a little payback. But for what I have seen, we might be undersized but there is a lot of fight in these kids. So my advice to the other teams is don't count your wins yet, or make plans for the state championship. Because besides a group of young green kids, there is a whole lot of tradition you have to overcome too.