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10 Pressing Questions

The high school football season begins in less than three weeks. Leading up to preseason games, the Times will answer 10 Pressing Questions facing Pinellas schools.

By JOHN SCHWARB, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 21, 2002

3. How will Tarpon Springs cope with the graduation of RoShawn Marshall?

Sure, good teams graduate playmakers all the time, but Tarpon Springs lost more than that when RoShawn Marshall left. It lost a top receiver, returner and defender, plus a bit of attitude.

Marshall, a Times first-team all-county utility player was just that -- a player who fit in all over the field and consistently made spectacular plays. He scored touchdowns as a receiver, kick returner and punt returner, intercepted passes as a cornerback and made opposing teams worry before Friday nights.

"A kid like him, he's probably good for 14 points in a ballgame," Spongers coach Don Davis said. "That's either him scoring seven or preventing somebody from scoring seven.

"You'd have to hold your breath every time he touched the football, no matter where it was."

It's interesting that Marshall scored Tarpon's first touchdown of the season (a catch against Gibbs) and its last (a catch against Lake Gibson in the Spongers' first-round playoff loss). When he missed four games in midseason with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee, Tarpon went 2-2 and scored no more than 16 points in a game.

In the regular season, the Spongers were 6-0 with him.

Ironically, the player on the giving end of some of Marshall's highlight-film plays will try to fill some of his roles. Anthony Houllis, last year's quarterback, is moving to tailback and will return kicks. The senior will also play free safety.

"We're not going to still think about his loss, we'll get out there and go again," Houllis said.

What will be more difficult to gauge is how losing Marshall will affect Tarpon's swagger. Just having No. 5 in uniform would create a buzz on both sides of the field, but now, at least at the outset of the 2002 season, there is no one player in a maroon uniform other teams start planning for on Mondays.

"Teams will look at us and say they're nowhere near as dangerous as they were, but I don't mind that," Davis said. "I'd just as soon stay unnoticed.

"But would I rather line up with him? Yep."

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