Is winning important in spring?

Home

Community

Sports

Other Sun Publications

FREE DELIVERY!
Get Free Delivery! Request your Osceola News Gazette Today.

Login Form

2013 Osceola Health

2013 Sexual Predator Sexual Offender List sexualpredatorcover13

Windows on the Classroom March 2013

School Calendar
2012-2013

View our other Special Sections

Is winning important in spring?

Sports

Wednesday, 02 June 2010 12:37

Rick Pedone
Sports

EditorTrying to decipher the results of spring football games is as much art as it is science.
There’s a result on the scoreboard indicating a winner and a loser.
But, what does it mean?
Of the county’s seven high school teams, two (Celebration and Liberty) won, one (Osceola) almost did, and four (Gateway, Harmony, St. Cloud and Poinciana) lost decisively.

Based on those results, should the fans at Celebration and Liberty start blocking off Fridays in late November for playoff games?
Should the folks at the five schools that lost worry that their fall Friday evenings will be joyless?
Not necessarily.
The outcome of spring football games is dependent on random factors that don’t apply during the regular season.
Talent is always an important part of the equation. Maybe one team is simply that much better than the other.
However, it is a spring game. Potential starters might be held out because of minor injuries or because they are ineligible for spring practice. Most of those guys will be back when the games count.
Then, there is the “Do-we-need-to-win?” factor.
Long-time coaches at established programs feel less pressure to put on a good show than a new coach at a less successful school. Also, players at successful programs don’t need the morale boost that a win brings. The reverse is true as well. Historically, bad teams can benefit from a great spring game.
Celebration’s win over Poinciana May 21 was a big lift for the Storm, who never had a winning record. The Storm, under new coach Ben Aarestad, will have all summer to digest their success as they prepare for the regular season.
Are the Storm really as good as their 37-6 win indicates? Is Poinciana that far behind? Who can say for sure? But, for now, Celebration is feeling those Good Vibrations.
The same at Liberty, where the Chargers blanked Lake Region, 14-0, under Coach David Benson. Liberty was 8-3 last year, but it lost head coach Doug Nichols to OHS, and several of the team’s better players graduated.
The Chargers may not have needed the shot of confidence that they received by blanking the Thunder, but when your defense puts together a shutout, no matter what the situation, it doesn’t hurt.
Neither Harmony nor St. Cloud resembled playoff teams last week, but the coaches aren’t too worried.
Harmony Coach Dayne Brown used 80 players in the 38-14 loss at Daytona Beach Seabreeze, knowing that would almost certainly result in a loss.
“I don’t care what the scoreboard says after a spring game, I could care less,” he said. “I don’t care about this score, and when we beat Seabreeze last year pretty good at this time, I didn’t care about that score, either. This is all about finding out who your fighters are, the guys who want to play.”
Coach Mark Jackson at St. Cloud knew the Bulldogs were in for a test against an Olympia team that has a half dozen Division I players, but he threw a freshman-dominated offensive line on the field to see how they would perform against Class 6A competition.
Coaches know that every time they put a team on the field, their fans want to see a victory. It doesn’t matter whether it is spring or fall.
That’s why it takes willpower and a little courage for coaches to lift the first team and send in the backups, especially if their team is behind.
They know that they will hear from some disgruntled fans about what they should have done differently after a loss. Winning is infinitely easier.
But, smart coaches understand that the only thing spring football is good for is to prepare the players for the real thing.
Sometimes, that means playing the first unit most of the way and trying to win in order to boost confidence; other times, it means putting in the third-team defensive backs in the first half to see whether they can play.
A spring football scoreboard displays numbers, but not the whole story.