The Media Room
The Phrase For The Year? - "Compete"
The teachers haven't even finished packing their things up from this past school year... yet the Greendale Panther football team is already working out for the season this coming year. The offseason training events don't take to long to get started as 27 of Greendale's players made the trek north to Wisconsin Lutheran College's football field to participate in a 3-day passing league tournament.
This league consists of 20 high school teams from around the area. It is a 7-on-7 game, which means that only the receivers and backs are needed on offense and the linebackers and secondary personnel are needed on defense. It's more or less a controlled playground game only it's played on the friendly artificial turf of Raabe Stadium in Wauwatosa.
Each game last about 1/2 hour. You play 2 different teams each night. The offense would of course try and get in the end zone. It takes the normal 4 plays to get a first down, which are 20-yards apart instead of the normal 10-yards. If the defense held, they would switch out and the other team's offense would take a shot. There was a time limit for the quarterback to throw the ball, which was counted out loud by the attending officials. Because there are no pads involved, all you had to do is tag a person with one hand.
So let me tell you what I observed. The first thing I noticed was that Greendale had twice as many players as anyone else there. Hummmm... either these guys are bored and had nothing else to do at 9:15 on a Sunday night, or they are as serious as a heart attack about their football for this year's up and coming season. I could tell by the intense communicating, the hustle, the high fives, the excitement, the focus, and jumping chest bumps that they were VERY serious!
The next thing I noticed was that it was just a mater of time before Greendale ended up in the end zone of offense. I saw crisp passing, great hands, and some impressive speed. The more I watched, the more impressed I became. After a while I think the term excited would better describe what I was feeling. Because I'm a stat guy, I kept track of how many "catchable" balls were actually dropped. At the end of the night, I counted only 3. I did turn around one time and caught Head Coach Rob Stoltz with a smile on his face from ear to ear as senior quarterback Ernie Valente hit junior Brett Nethery on a 45-yard bomb of which Nethery just basically ran by a defender who didn't have a chance to keep up with him. Then there was senior running back Luke "Jig-Saw" Drumel. He caught one pass out of the backfield and zigzagged his way into the end zone from 20-yads out without any of the defenders laying a hand on him. We're talking ONE-HAND! That's almost impossible in this type of game.
On defense, I witnessed a lot of talking and signals between the players. I saw several interceptions including one from a tipped pass of which senior Bobby Hall went horizontally to catch the ball in the end zone for an interception. There were several nice broken up pass attempts along with plenty of hustle. At the end of the night, Greendale pretty much seemed to dominate their opponents on both sides of the ball.
The Panthers have the last leg of this 3-day league this coming Sunday June 27th at 9:15pm. There are several other events coming as well as they start honing in their skills for the 2010 high school football season. Check out the "Calendar" page for times and places.
Of course we have to keep one thing in mind here. This is only a passing league with no hitting involved so you can't really put this team on a pedestal yet. However, the one thing that is very difficult to teach is attitude. That is something that each player must create himself. From what I saw, I don't see that as being a problem.
OH YEAH! I almost forgot. I asked Coach Stoltz, who was there strictly as an observer along with coaches Gary Jagodzinski and Jermaine Murry, what this year's catch phrase was. He boldly replied, "Compete!" I guess you can't ask for anymore then that!
