Football continues to improve
Posted by The Skyliner on April 21st, 2010Billy Cannada
Staff Writer
Despite a disappointing 2009 season, the North Greenville football team concluded their spring practices in strong fashion on April 17, hosting the annual Red and White spring game.
“When you take over a program you are trying to establish a foundation,” said head coach Jamey Chadwell. “This spring we got better in a lot of areas, and we were able to come out in this game and do some positive things.”
“You try to use the spring as a confidence builder [for the team] going into the summer and the fall, so I was very pleased with the progress we made this spring.”
The spring game, however, did not give Crusader fans a true picture of what the 2010 North Greenville football team will look like. After all, the Crusaders will be adding 24 freshmen to their depth chart this fall, and Chadwell believes they will make up a key part of this North Greenville team.
“The freshmen are going to bring a competitive winning spirit to the program,” said Chadwell. “We are expecting them to come and play. We played a lot of freshmen last year and we expected to play a lot of freshmen next season.”
Offensive lineman James Thurn, junior broadcast media, also believes that the talented group of freshmen will really benefit the Crusaders in the fall.
“Freshmen are going to have to step up because of the nature of where we are at right now,” said Thurn. “We are going to have some guys coming in offensively that are going to be expect to perform well early.”
North Greenville has had a rough off-season, as injuries have plagued the Crusaders at many different positions. Richard Harb, junior history, who was the starting quarterback last season, is coming off of a torn ACL. Backup quarterback Aaron Seigler, freshman business administration, has also been experiencing the injury bug, as he has been dealing with a toe injury.
“We are coming through adversity,” Thurn said of the injuries. “Its not about how many times you succeed, it’s about how many times you fail and get back up.”
Chadwell said that despite the injuries, the Crusaders will be back and better than ever in the fall.
“If you are going to have injuries you would rather have them happen in the spring rather than in the fall,” said Chadwell. “The silver lining in all of this is that our young guys are getting to play.”
Chadwell believes that he has the program moving in the right direction, and hopes to accomplish his goals next year.
“Our ultimate goal is to get to the Victory Bowl,” said Chadwell. “But our secondary goal is to play the very best we can play every game.”
Tags: Spring 2010, Vol. 110 - Issue 12