The Terry Fox Ravens football team that walks onto the field at Percy Perry Stadium on Friday to open its BC High School Football season against Mount Douglas doesn’t look much like the side that won the Subway Bowl AAA provincial championship at BC Place last December.
For one, 16 players have graduated from that team that won the school’s third provincial title in the past 10 years. For another, there’s just not as many players pulling on the pads and helmets.
That’s created a bit of a double-barrelled challenge for Ravens’ head coach Martin McDonnell.
He’s looking to fill out his roster with some Grade 10’s and the leadership that normally comes from senior players will have to come from the Grade 11 players who got a taste with the varsity team last year.
Like quarterback Jevaun Jacobsen, whose bloodlines make him a gifted athlete and natural leader. He’s the younger brother of former NFLer and CFLer Corey Mace.
“He’s a heck of an athlete,” McDonnell said of Jacobsen, who will be getting the ball to another talented junior, Jaden Savery, a speedster in track and field in the spring and downfield and out of the backfield as a receiver and running back in the fall.
“They’re young, they’re both stepping up as leaders,” McDonnell said.
Other key juniors McDonnell is looking to pick up the mantle of leadership include two-way lineman Michael Evans and Layth Begg, along with hulking 6’6”, 265-pound offensive tackle Matthew Hewa Baddege.
Among returning seniors, defensive lineman Adam Tennent, linebacker Mason Reeves and tight end Eric Polan will impart that winning feeling.
“They’ve seen it and they realize what it takes,” McDonnell said.
But fulfilling that potential will be a challenge as many of the team’s 25 true varsity players will have to do double duty on defence and offence while McDonnell plugs holes with a half dozen or more young junior varsity players. That’s down from the halcyon days of a decade ago, when 45 players crowded the sidelines.
“Our numbers are not what they should be,” McDonnell said.
He thinks the growing concern about concussion injuries in football is scaring some kids and parents away. And some kids aren’t as keen to commit to the rigours of the football program, which comes with daily two-hour practices.
“Kids are different today,” McDonnell said. “Kids aren’t as excited about what it takes to excel.”
In an effort to spark interest, McDonnell has instituted a study hall program that matches senior players with their younger teammates as they get free tutoring from volunteer teachers. He also took the team to the U.S. for some exhibition games and scrimmages to expose them to the excitement and atmosphere of “Friday Night Lights” football where the stands are packed with 2,000 fans and the sidelines jammed with 80 players who live and breath the sport.
The Raven’s didn’t win a game, but that wasn’t the objective, McDonnell said.
“It’s sort of a baptism of fire,” he said. “You hope the teams we’re going to play up here are going to be easier after that.”
McDonnell and his youthful charges will find that out beginning Friday at 4 p.m.
