The Contagion of Winning

How about an unscheduled post while waiting for the season to start?

With preseason practice ready to begin next Monday, my conversations with folks in town naturally turn to the Pioneers' upcoming 2011 campaign. Invariably, most everyone I've spoken to comes up with some variation of this analysis:

"Looks like they're going to struggle this year."

For the casual fan, that might be a normal reaction. After all, the Pioneers are coming off the most wins in a two season stretch in the history of the program (19-4). And clearly a ton of talent has exited the program thanks to the 2010 and 2011 graduations.

Gone from the rosters of the 2009 CAL Small Championship team and last season's 9-2 squad are two League Players of the Year and a League Lineman of the year. Also graduating was a pair of two time All League players and 14 other All League performers. And to top it off gone from the two year juggernaut are three of the school's top 11 all time scorers: (Gino Cohee, third 182 points, Chris Grassi, seventh 146 points and Steve Ullian, eleventh 105 points).

 That's an impressive array of talent to backfill, so looking at 2011 as a rebuilding year might not be unreasonable.

But let's hold off a minute.

Super Bowl winning coach Mike Ditka once said "Confidence is infectious, doubt is contagious."

Those following the Pioneer football program in the pre 2009 era can attest to the second half of that statement. For 2011, we might want to focus on the front half of Ditka's remark.

In response to the "2011 will be a struggle" statement, I usually respond with my retelling of the story of the 1980 North Reading Hornets.

I covered the Hornets from 1976 to 1986 for the North Reading Transcript and the arc of their rebuilding and success of that period is uncannily similar to that of the Pioneers of the past few years.

Like the Pioneers of the 90's and 2000's, the Hornets of the 60's and early 70's struggled. In 1976, an enthusiastic young coach named Ed Sapienza took over a North Reading team that went 1-9 in 1975 and hadn't posted a winning season since 1967. The Hornets managed a 3-6 season in 1976 and finished 5-5 under Sapienza in 1977. The big turning point came on Thanksgiving Day in North Reading that season when the Hornets routed the Pioneers 30-0.

That catapulted the Hornets to a pair of historic seasons. In 1978, the Hornets beat the second place Pioneers 21-8 on Thanksgiving Day to finish 8-1-1 and capture their first ever Cape Ann League championship.

In 1979, the Hornets returned a huge talent pool and again took the CAL crown, beating the Pioneers 13-6 and finishing 9-0-1. This time the win earned them a trip to the Division Three Super Bowl where they fell to a powerful Canton team 28-6.

Their two year record was 17-1-2.

The Pioneers have followed a similar pattern.

An energetic young coach in Neal Weidman took over the Lynnfield program in 2008 and struggled through a 3-8 season. Like the Hornets, the turnaround came on Thanksgiving day when the Pioneers whitewashed the Hornets 21-0. That propelled Lynnfield to a 10-2 mark in 2009, a CAL Small championship and a trip to the playoffs.

The 2010 team returned a stellar group of seniors who had been instrumental in the 09 run and they mowed down their first seven opponents by a 252-58 margin and appeared poised to defend their crown. Unfortunately they hit a bump in the road at Newburyport and suffered a last second heartbreaking loss to Hamilton Wenham to deny their repeat bid. However the Pioneers still finished an impressive 9-2.

Their two year record was 19-4.

Like the Pioneers coming into 2011, the 1980 Hornets were looking at filling some major holes as graduation from their two championship teams hit them hard.

One intrepid reporter (okay me) previewed the Hornets this way: "Hurt badly by graduation...Inexperience will make title defense difficult."

Graduation took 28 Hornets and they entered the 1980 season with only 12 seniors.

But Sapienza would not give in to the idea of rebuilding. "Like I tell my players," he said to me, "we're the CAL Champions until someone takes it away from us."

So how did the young "rebuilding" Hornets make out in 1980?

Not bad.

They opened with an impressive 21-0 non-league win over a weak Medfield team. The following week they were outplayed by Pentucket but returned a punt 55 yards for the winning score with five minutes left to escape with a 14-10 win.

The Hornets then traveled to Byfield where Triton snapped their 13 game regular season winning streak in a 14-7 loss. North Reading then ran off wins against Amesbury, North Andover, Hamilton-Wenham, Ipswich, Masco and Newburyport setting up another Thanksgiving Day contest with the CAL title on the line.

The Hornets completed their improbable season by scoring the winning touchdown against the Pioneers with 23 seconds left in the game to take a 7-6 win. They finished 9-1 and earned a piece of the CAL championship along with Newburyport. It was the Hornets' third straight CAL crown, something that was totally unexpected given the talent drain of the prior two years.

So does that mean we can expect a championship season from Pioneers who find themselves in a similar position as that 1980 Hornet team?

Not necessarily. But what it does remind you is that this is high school football and you simply can't underestimate the power of what the Pioneers have accomplished over the past two years. Winning begets winning and although the Pioneers still have to do it on the field, it is clear that the Lynnfield football program has developed a winning attitude. Oh and by the way, the Pioneers have a good deal of talent left in the cupboard so it's way too early to write off the season.

And if they need any further inspiration, they need only look back at the example of their archrivals' 1980 team.