Welcome to the May edition of the blog and as luck would have it May 9th (I post on the ninth of the month in honor of the 2009 CAL Champion Pioneers) happens to fall on Mother's Day. So before we get into a little football talk, I thought it would be a good idea for a quick shout out to all the Pioneer "Football Mothers", both present and past, who as we all know are the heart and soul of any football program.
As a former "Football Dad" married to a "Football Mom" I can tell you from first hand experience that the Moms always get the short end of the yard marker.
While we Dads fret and pace along the fence, on the sideline or in the stands, debating coaching strategy, personnel decisions and penalty calls, the Moms are organizing and carrying out the essential work that makes a high school football game the great event that it is.
The process of indoctrinating the Moms into the program is quite effective. As mothers of freshmen, they are recruited into the program slowly, maybe by selling 50/50 raffles.
As their sons grow into sophomores and juniors, the Moms workload increases. Manning (Womanning?) the concession stand becomes the next big job. It's always a particularly challenging task when the crowd reacts and the Moms abruptly halt their dispensing of hot dogs and sodas and try to stand on tiptoes and crane their necks to see what is happening on the field.
And Lord knows that there is a special saint in heaven for the mothers of seniors who have a tasks list to rival any fat football playbook.
Start with the care and feeding of the football hordes. If you haven't experienced the sight of dozens of high school football players devouring pancakes at a breakfast or spaghetti and meatballs at a dinner, you are clearly missing one of America's great spectacles. And who is there preparing and shoveling the food into those insatiable, gaping teenage mouths? You got it: the the "Football Mothers."
And as the season winds down, the work for the moms continues. You know that wonderful ceremony where the seniors hand their moms and dads flowers at the final home game? Guess who organizes that? One hint: NOT the Dads or the players.
Then comes the season's capstone event: The end of year banquet.
Watching the amount of planning and work that goes into organizing that event will give you some idea of what General Eisenhower and his staff had to do in planning the invasion of Normandy in World War II. Decorations, invitations, programs, photos and memorabilia for the seniors, video and slide shows are just some of the things that the Moms, particularly Captains' Moms, must deal with to prepare for the event.
We take it all for granted, but the responsibilities and tasks taken on by the Moms throughout a football season and football career are many, varied, endless and unfortunately for the most part, thankless. So in honor of Mother's Day, I think it's a good time for all you players and Dads to give your own "Football Mom" a big hug and hearty "Thank You" for all they do. They certainly deserve it.
Happy Mothers' Day Moms!
I've also included this link that I found on a Texas High School Football page. I'm sure it captures a lot of the emotions of all the Football Moms out there.
A Football Mother's Prayer
News and Notes
As the LHS Class of 2010 prepares to graduate, it's a good time to look ahead to see what some of the seniors will be doing next year.
According to head coach Neal Weidman, captain George Hennessey will be roaming the gridiron at Framingham State in the fall. Joining him on the Rams squad will be former Pioneer captain and four year starter Pat Lamusta (Class of 2008).
After a couple of football-less years at UMass Amherst, Pat has decided he still has the "grid bug" and is not "ready to give it up." He is looking forward to reuniting with George. "It will be weird wearing the black and yellow jersey," said Lamusta. "Hopefully we will be difference makers for the Rams."
With the hard hitting Pat and George prowling the middle of the Ram defense, New England Football Conference ball carriers and receivers better keep their heads up!
The two former Pioneers will have an interesting reunion when FSU takes on NEFC rival Endicott College this fall. Facing them on the other side of the field will be George's brother and fellow LHS captain Joe Hennessey who will be donning the pads for the Gulls. No date for that game yet, but we'll be sure to mark that one on our calendar.
Captain Jon Leyden is headed to Northeastern but not to play football. According to Weidman, Leydon had contemplated going to WPI where he could have played, but opted to become a Husky. The rugged lineman played most of his senior year on bad knees but toughed it out to be a major contributor to the Pioneer's championship effort.
Pioneer team MVP Chris Grassi is deciding between Stonehill and Suffolk, according to the coach. If he opts for Suffolk, he would play baseball for the Rams. He would not, however, play football there. As a Suffolk Alum, I proudly wear my Ram football teeshirt that proclaims "Suffolk Football- Still Undefeated." Alas, the Beacon Hill university doesn't have a football program. If Chris heads to Stonehill, he could have the opportunity to hit the gridiron for the Skyhawks.
Spring/Summer Events
Believe it or not, we are only a little more than three months away from the start of preseason practices, and Weidman has a full slate of activity planned for the Pioneers for spring and early summer.
The team will be participating in a couple of 7 on 7 tournaments. The first will be June 13 at St. Anselm's College (alma mater of Pioneer line coach Mike Geary) and the second will be at the High School on July 24th. The Pioneers will also be participating in a 7 on 7 league from late June to early August. There are seven games on the slate against teams from Bishop Fenwich (a 2010 LHS opponent), Swampscott, Methuen, Reading and Peabody. I'll have a complete schedule and further details in the June post.
Weidman feels the 7 on 7's are extremely helpful in preparing for the season. The games feature a center, quarterback and five wide receivers or backs. It is all passing and is touch rather than tackle.
"The kids get to play together, running routes and gets them into football shape," said the coach. "It also builds a rapport and gets them used to playing football again."
That's it for now and we'll see you on June 9th.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Playoff Proposal Defeat Good News For Pioneers
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of Cape Ann League football are greatly exaggerated.
By an overwhelming 190-114 vote, a proposal that would have tripled the number of teams making the playoffs, realigned all of Massachusetts football into new divisions and eliminated all existing football leagues, was soundly defeated at a meeting of the MIAA on March 26th.
And that is good news for Lynnfield High football.
The idea behind the proposal was to get more teams into postseason play, similar to the situation in other sports where up to 50% of teams make the tournament. An additional goal was to level the playing field by aligning schools with similar enrollments into the same division.
Unfortunately for Lynnfield, the realignment made the Pioneers the smallest school out of 16 in Division Four North. That meant they would be battling much bigger schools like Pentucket, Swampscott and Melrose in addition to many of their current CAL Small brethren like Newburyport, Amesbury, Hamilton Wenham and North Reading,
Obviously it was not a very good situation for them to be in.
The biggest problem for the realignment for Lynnfield was the size of the schools at the top of their proposed division. For alignment purposes, Lynnfield had 337 male students. The top three schools in Division Four North would have been Melrose (426 or 26% more than LHS), Pentucket (412), Saugus (407) and Stoneham (401).
The Pioneers stopped playing CAL Large opponents to avoid such mismatches.
By contrast, the spread in the CAL Small is much tighter. Newburyport, at 375 is only 11% larger than Lynnfield with Manchester-Essex/Rockport (371), Hamilton Wenham (347), North Reading (346), Amesbury (340), Ipswich (315) and Georgetown (200) all with similar enrollments.
LHS Principal Robert Cleary and head coach Neal Weidman attended the meeting and voted against the proposal.
"Where Lynnfield fell was not the best thing for us," Weidman said. "The football committee did a good job and provided a good base. Eventually something will be done. But I have to look out for what's best for our kids."
Weidman had expected the vote to be close, but as debate went on during the meeting, it became clear that opposition to the plan was overwhelming.
"During the open discussion portion a lot more people spoke against it than for it," Weidman said. "There were just too many unanswered questions."
According to the coach, much of the opposition centered on two main issues, financial and competition.
On the financial side, teams that made the playoffs would lose two games worth of gate receipts. How the monies collected from the MIAA at the playoff games would be shared with the teams was an open question. And despite the realignment, there was still some questions as to the competitiveness of the proposed divisions.
Other teams in the CAL Small were split on the proposal.
Amesbury helped lead the opposition to the plan with principal Les Murray writing the "con" opinion in the Boston Globe. He cited travel concerns - hiking to Watertown and Bedford as examples - the loss of local rivalries and the overall scheduling.
Under the proposal, every team would play their first seven games within their division. Beginning in Week Eight, the top eight teams in each division would begin three weeks of playoffs. The postseason would break to allow for the traditional Thanksgiving Day games to be played and then resume with true state championships at Gillette the following week.
New schedules for the final three weeks of the season would be made up for the teams that did not make the playoffs or were knocked out in the first two rounds. Murray voiced concern that schools wouldn't know who they would be playing in week eight until that point in time.
Hamilton Wenham also opposed the plan. According to an article in the Ipswich Chronicle, head coach Andrew Morency expressed concerns regarding breaking up the leagues and also the increased costs of extended travel.
On the other side, Ipswich was strongly in favor of the plan, due in no small part to the fact that IHS principal Barry Cahill chairs the MIAA football committee. In that same article, Cahill stated he was in favor since he felt it "created parity for his school's football team."
The fact that the Ipswich, with only 22 less male students in grades 9-12 than Lynnfield, would have been the third largest school in Division Five North, may have also helped determine their final decision.
Manchester-Essex, which will now join the CAL Small in 2011, was also in favor. M-E now plays much larger schools in the Commonwealth Athletic Conference Large but fit much better in the CAL where they have 34 more male students than Lynnfield and only four less than Newburyport.
"The league as a whole was unsure of the plan," Weidman related. He also agreed that the disbanding of the league structure was a concern. "Not having a league champion would not be the same."
Other schools had different reasons for their decisions.
Cambridge, Rindge and Latin, coached by Lynnfield resident Joe Papagni, was strongly in favor of the proposal because of the instability of the Greater Boston League. "Our league is basically non-existent," said Papagni, former Pioneer assistant and current LHS head lacrosse coach. The GBL, once one of the premier leagues in Eastern Mass now consists of Cambridge, Everett, Malden, Medford and Somerville.
Not only is scheduling a problem - "I have to pick up Xaverian, St. John's, Catholic Memorial to fill out our schedule" - but Papagni faces the daunting task of having to upend powerhouse Everett in order to make the postseason.
"We are also a technical school, which drops our enrollment for alignment purposes and we would have been in Division Two North playing teams more in line with us. Overall it would have helped us."
Now that the realignment plan has been defeated, the Cape Ann League faces some choices.
Beginning in 2011, M-E will join the CAL Small while Wilmington is heading out for the Middlesex League. That will leave Masco, North Andover, Pentucket and Triton as the only CAL Large teams while eight teams will then be in the CAL Small.
"The league could go out and get teams to move into the Large which would be good," said Weidman. "Or two teams could move up from the Small to even off the leagues at six and six."
Who exactly would move up would depend on the enrollments of the schools at the time the decision is made. Based on the realignment proposal, the two largest schools in the CAL Small were Newburyport and Manchester Essex (which included Rockport). But that was based on 2007 enrollments and there has been a lot of population volatility in recent years so who would ultimately move up is still very much in the air.
But one thing remains certain. The CAL Small will exist for the foreseeable future and all things considered, that is the best outcome for Lynnfield football.
Check back on May 9th for my next post.
By an overwhelming 190-114 vote, a proposal that would have tripled the number of teams making the playoffs, realigned all of Massachusetts football into new divisions and eliminated all existing football leagues, was soundly defeated at a meeting of the MIAA on March 26th.
And that is good news for Lynnfield High football.
The idea behind the proposal was to get more teams into postseason play, similar to the situation in other sports where up to 50% of teams make the tournament. An additional goal was to level the playing field by aligning schools with similar enrollments into the same division.
Unfortunately for Lynnfield, the realignment made the Pioneers the smallest school out of 16 in Division Four North. That meant they would be battling much bigger schools like Pentucket, Swampscott and Melrose in addition to many of their current CAL Small brethren like Newburyport, Amesbury, Hamilton Wenham and North Reading,
Obviously it was not a very good situation for them to be in.
The biggest problem for the realignment for Lynnfield was the size of the schools at the top of their proposed division. For alignment purposes, Lynnfield had 337 male students. The top three schools in Division Four North would have been Melrose (426 or 26% more than LHS), Pentucket (412), Saugus (407) and Stoneham (401).
The Pioneers stopped playing CAL Large opponents to avoid such mismatches.
By contrast, the spread in the CAL Small is much tighter. Newburyport, at 375 is only 11% larger than Lynnfield with Manchester-Essex/Rockport (371), Hamilton Wenham (347), North Reading (346), Amesbury (340), Ipswich (315) and Georgetown (200) all with similar enrollments.
LHS Principal Robert Cleary and head coach Neal Weidman attended the meeting and voted against the proposal.
"Where Lynnfield fell was not the best thing for us," Weidman said. "The football committee did a good job and provided a good base. Eventually something will be done. But I have to look out for what's best for our kids."
Weidman had expected the vote to be close, but as debate went on during the meeting, it became clear that opposition to the plan was overwhelming.
"During the open discussion portion a lot more people spoke against it than for it," Weidman said. "There were just too many unanswered questions."
According to the coach, much of the opposition centered on two main issues, financial and competition.
On the financial side, teams that made the playoffs would lose two games worth of gate receipts. How the monies collected from the MIAA at the playoff games would be shared with the teams was an open question. And despite the realignment, there was still some questions as to the competitiveness of the proposed divisions.
Other teams in the CAL Small were split on the proposal.
Amesbury helped lead the opposition to the plan with principal Les Murray writing the "con" opinion in the Boston Globe. He cited travel concerns - hiking to Watertown and Bedford as examples - the loss of local rivalries and the overall scheduling.
Under the proposal, every team would play their first seven games within their division. Beginning in Week Eight, the top eight teams in each division would begin three weeks of playoffs. The postseason would break to allow for the traditional Thanksgiving Day games to be played and then resume with true state championships at Gillette the following week.
New schedules for the final three weeks of the season would be made up for the teams that did not make the playoffs or were knocked out in the first two rounds. Murray voiced concern that schools wouldn't know who they would be playing in week eight until that point in time.
Hamilton Wenham also opposed the plan. According to an article in the Ipswich Chronicle, head coach Andrew Morency expressed concerns regarding breaking up the leagues and also the increased costs of extended travel.
On the other side, Ipswich was strongly in favor of the plan, due in no small part to the fact that IHS principal Barry Cahill chairs the MIAA football committee. In that same article, Cahill stated he was in favor since he felt it "created parity for his school's football team."
The fact that the Ipswich, with only 22 less male students in grades 9-12 than Lynnfield, would have been the third largest school in Division Five North, may have also helped determine their final decision.
Manchester-Essex, which will now join the CAL Small in 2011, was also in favor. M-E now plays much larger schools in the Commonwealth Athletic Conference Large but fit much better in the CAL where they have 34 more male students than Lynnfield and only four less than Newburyport.
"The league as a whole was unsure of the plan," Weidman related. He also agreed that the disbanding of the league structure was a concern. "Not having a league champion would not be the same."
Other schools had different reasons for their decisions.
Cambridge, Rindge and Latin, coached by Lynnfield resident Joe Papagni, was strongly in favor of the proposal because of the instability of the Greater Boston League. "Our league is basically non-existent," said Papagni, former Pioneer assistant and current LHS head lacrosse coach. The GBL, once one of the premier leagues in Eastern Mass now consists of Cambridge, Everett, Malden, Medford and Somerville.
Not only is scheduling a problem - "I have to pick up Xaverian, St. John's, Catholic Memorial to fill out our schedule" - but Papagni faces the daunting task of having to upend powerhouse Everett in order to make the postseason.
"We are also a technical school, which drops our enrollment for alignment purposes and we would have been in Division Two North playing teams more in line with us. Overall it would have helped us."
Now that the realignment plan has been defeated, the Cape Ann League faces some choices.
Beginning in 2011, M-E will join the CAL Small while Wilmington is heading out for the Middlesex League. That will leave Masco, North Andover, Pentucket and Triton as the only CAL Large teams while eight teams will then be in the CAL Small.
"The league could go out and get teams to move into the Large which would be good," said Weidman. "Or two teams could move up from the Small to even off the leagues at six and six."
Who exactly would move up would depend on the enrollments of the schools at the time the decision is made. Based on the realignment proposal, the two largest schools in the CAL Small were Newburyport and Manchester Essex (which included Rockport). But that was based on 2007 enrollments and there has been a lot of population volatility in recent years so who would ultimately move up is still very much in the air.
But one thing remains certain. The CAL Small will exist for the foreseeable future and all things considered, that is the best outcome for Lynnfield football.
Check back on May 9th for my next post.
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