Athens boosters hope to promote Nelsonville-style football fever
Athens NEWS Associate Editor
Monday, August 20th, 2007
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This Friday night, Athens
High School and Nelsonville-York High School will battle in their annual
football game. But while the people of Nelsonville will be totally pumped about
the season-opening contest, and turn out in large numbers to watch it, many
people in Athens won't know anything about the game.
High school football is hugely popular in southeast Ohio,
particularly in communities like Nelsonville and Trimble, but just a few miles
down the road in Athens the district residents -- and many of the students --
don't seem to much care.
A new community group in Athens is trying to change the
attitude of the community and do more to support the football team, but admits
is has a tough task ahead of it.
Kevin Schwarzel coaches the 7th-grade football team at
Athens, and has long experience officiating at high school and college football
games. He has seen the crowds and the football fever in other communities in
southeast Ohio, and the lack thereof in Athens.
"If you go into a lot of the smaller towns on Friday
night, there's nothing going on but the football game," Schwarzel said. A
band leads the fans down Main Street, people hold tailgating parties and the
whole community turns out.
"It's the most important thing going on," he
said. "Here in Athens, we don't have that philosophy at all." The
student body is different, and the white-collar community is also different
from much of blue-collar southern Ohio, he said.
"Football is not a big part of the civic pride,"
he said. "A lot of the parents are more concerned with how their kids do
on their ACTs than if they score touchdowns on Friday night."
It's not a bad thing, obviously, for parents to be focused
on grades, Schwarzel said, but added that it makes the community different, and
he feels it's a little unfair to the student-athletes.
"Our kids are really getting short-changed compared
to other kids in the county and other parts of the state, because they are not
getting the support from the community that other kids get," he argued.
The fact that the team hasn't won much in recent years
also affects the level of support, he added.
One reason for the lack of success is the number of
coaching changes, he suggested.
In the last 25 years, Athens High has had 15 coaches,
Schwarzel estimated. Schools like Trimble and Nelsonville have had more
continuity in coaching, and that helps make the programs successful, he said.
He said he likes the new coaches at the high school, and
believes they can build some stability for the program and turn it around.
Schwarzel is also trying to get more kids to play football at younger ages, and
noted that last year's 7th-grade team went undefeated.
Athens also offers more sports programs than most local
school districts, as it has boys' soccer, cross-country, golf and hockey all
competing against football.
"The kids that play soccer are pretty athletic,"
he added. "That's good that our kids have all those options."
RYAN ADAMS IS taking over as head coach of the Athens team
this year. He graduated from Athens High in 1990 so he knows about the history
of the sports program.
He has 41 students out for football this year, and said
that is a good number when you factor in that there are only eight seniors on
the team.
"We've had... a browbeater here for the last three
years," Adams said referring to the previous coaching staff. "A lot
of the fun was taken out of it."
Adams said he's trying to make football fun for the
students again, and is reaching out to try to get more students to go out for
and support the team.
"I think, more than anything else, what makes Athens
so unique (is)... you have the competition with Ohio University," Adams
said. People try to support the high school and university, but it's difficult
to do both, he said. By contrast, he said, in towns such as Logan, the businesses
all put signs up supporting the high school sports teams.
"All too often, we just get a little bit
overshadowed," he said. He added that he has received "great
community support" already, and is thankful for it.
Winning tends to get more people excited about sports, but
Athens hasn't done much winning in recent years, he acknowledged.
"Nothing can get a community more fired up and kind
of on the bandwagon than to have a successful football season," he said.
But while success can breed more success, failure also tends to breed more
failure, he said. Last year's football, basketball and baseball teams at Athens
won only a handful of games, and they all finished at the bottom of the league,
he said.
Despite this challenge, Adams said he's aiming to first get
his players excited about football and playing better, and then to build up
support for the program.
"I've got an incredible group of guys that are
coaching now," he added. He also hopes to hold pep rallies at the
elementary, middle school and high school, and encourage more students to go to
the games.
"(Rallies are) something I absolutely want to bring
back," he said.
Athens High School currently holds two pep rallies for the
whole year, though Principal Mike Meek said he will consider holding a few
more.
"We're not going to take a lot of academic time out
of the school day, because there's just so much emphasis on academics with all
of the state-mandated tests and all the kids that are getting prepared for
college," Meek said.
For schools its size, Athens High School has one of the
highest percentages in the state for schools of its students going to college,
he said. The school's ACT and SAT scores are above the state average, and the
people of the community expect the school to do well academically, he said.
"I think that the Athens community supports all of
their athletics as well as their academics," he added.
The school is moving out of the Southeast Ohio Athletic
League (SEOAL) to the Tri-Valley Conference next season, and the switch of
leagues will have several benefits, Meek said.
First, it will save the school money because the bus trips
to league games will be much shorter, as most TVC schools are closer than most
SEOAL schools, he said. Students will thus be able to get home earlier at
night, he noted.
"You're going to have bigger crowds," he added.
Playing more local schools, there should be better rivalries and more fans at
the game, he said.
Debbie Clary has one son on the football team, and one son
who played football before he graduated from Athens in 2000. She is part of the
new spirit group that has formed to try to get people more involved with
football. Her daughter is a cheerleader, and Clary said the parents have been
meeting with the cheerleaders to see what they can do.
"Even when it's a home game in Athens, the away
team's bleachers are overflowing," she said. "It's almost as if there
are more people on that side of the field than there our on ours. It's really
sad."
The new spirit group will be putting up banners in Athens
and helping the cheerleaders hold more theme nights and events to try to get
more people involved, she said.
DAVE BOSTON COACHED football at Nelsonville-York High
School from when it was formed in 1967, until he retired in 1992. (He had
coached one year at the old Nelsonville High School before the district
consolidated.) His son, Dave Boston, Jr., now has the head coaching job. In 40
years, the school has had only three head football coaches.
"I think that the thing that has happened is over the
years there has been a great deal of pride in the community," he said. The
state championship in the 1980s played a big role, and football has become a
tradition. Students look at it as an honor to play for the Buckeyes, and there
are 60 kids out for football this fall, Boston said.
"When I came here, Nelsonville was a basketball
school," he said.
His son has led the team to four straight league titles
(something Boston said he never did) and has not yet lost a league game as a
head coach.,
"The program is in great hands," he said. As for
the fan support, Boston Sr., said, you won't find fans any better than in
Nelsonville.
"You go to an Athens ballgame... and they will not
have near the fans that Nelsonville-York will have," he said. "I
think that hurts the program." He added that he thinks the new coaches
will help Athens , and that the move to the new league will also help.
The SEOAL is a strong league, and Boston said he is not
sure if the Athens kids have always believed that they could win every game.
"We always try to get our kids to believe... if we
were playing Ohio State on Friday night, I would believe that we had the
opportunity to win," he said. "I don't care who we are playing, we
have an opportunity to win a football game."
Nelsonville fans fill the bleaches and stand all around
the field, Boston said. The stadium in Nelsonville is "a phenomenal
facility" with an artificial turf field, a new eight-lane track and a
great atmosphere for sports, he added.
With Nelsonville graduate Jay Edwards playing football for
OU this year, Boston said he figures the university will draw a few hundred
more fans every game just from the Nelsonville fans.
Nelsonville holds pep rallies every Friday before the
game, as the whole student body goes to the gym, the band marches in the halls
and the coaches speak, Boston said.
"It's a big thing," he said. He added that he
doesn't think it takes away from academics, and said that his son is instituting
study tables for the football team this year, so that the players will study
from 2:30-3:30 p.m. and then go to practice.
"Classroom is first, football is second," Boston
said. He is starting the season expecting the Buckeyes will go 10-0, just as he
expects every season, he said.
"I'm looking for another great season out of our
kids," he said.
Earich Dean coaches the junior high teams at Nelsonville,
and also works with the youth football program. Fan support is even great for
the junior high and youth football programs, he added.
The great coaches at the high school have helped build
success, and the school has become dominant in the sport.
"When you say Nelsonville, you say football," he
said. The lack of sports to compete with football probably helps the program,
and the great facilities help too, he said. The tradition is also very
important.
"Lots of kids, their days played in the program. They
know what Nelsonville is all about," Dean said. "Football is
basically life in Nelsonville."
Athens County Commissioner Lenny Eliason agreed that
Nelsonville has a strong tradition, and that tradition helps keep the football
program strong.
He added one aspect that hurts Athens, compared to other
schools in the SEOAL, is that there are five schools in the county. Logan High
School is the only school in its county, and schools like Gallia Academy and
Jackson High School also draw from a greater percentage of students in those
counties.
"We have a lot of great athletes, but they're spread
out all over the place," he said. "Imagine if we had one school in
Athens County, what the athletic programs would be like."
He added that football success and fan support is
cyclical. There was a time when Athens had a dominant football program, and he
hopes the team will be successful again soon.