Place an Ad Calendars Classified Forums Sports Weather

sptimes.com Text-only News sections Arts & Entertainment AP The Wire Business Citrus County Columnists Floridian Hernando County Hillsborough Letters Movies Neighborhood Times News Update North Pinellas North of Tampa Obituaries Opinion Pasco County South Pinellas Sports State Tampa Bay TV Times World & Nation  Find your local news section Weekly sections Brandon Times City Times Homes Outdoors Perspective Personal Tech Taste Travel Weekend Xpress Special Sections Arena football Buccaneers College football Devil Rays Lightning Police reports Schools Seniority Subscriber Services Subscribe Renew Help Advertise Place an ad In print Online Market Info Join Us Internships Scholarships Times Jobs Contact us

Preps

Wildcats ugly only yesterday

TAMPA -- Now that Wharton is one victory from the Class 5A state title game, let's remind ourselves how inept, how weak and horrible, the Wildcats once were.

Let's start in 1997, the year Wharton opened and the football team was ... hapless.

At the first steaming-hot practice in August, Wharton ran onto a field of knee-high grass with 30 freshmen, 17 sophomores, seven juniors and no seniors. Only five of the freshmen weighed more than 175 pounds and they averaged 155. None had been on a summer weight-training program and the majority, according to then-coach Dan Acosta, had never played football.

The locker room also wasn't ready, so coaches drove for weeks with equipment in their cars and vans, passing around pads and helmets before practice as players dressed in a classroom.

Former assistant Mark Howlett was forced to stack helmets floor-to-ceiling in his brand-new minivan.

"On the first day, the helmets made the van smell like rubber," Howlett said. "On the second day, it smelled like sweaty rubber. On the third day, it just smelled like sweat.

"(Three weeks later), it still smelled like sweat."

And adding to the absurdity, Wharton's players were optimistic.

Optimistic even though they opened with Armwood, which went 11-2 the year before and had major Division I prospects Ken "Shaq" Dawson (6 feet 6, 295 pounds) and Mike Pearson (6-7, 285) on its line.

Pearson, by the way, is now playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and in 1997 scouting services had him ranked the No. 1 high school lineman in the country.

This, however, didn't stop Wharton's 5-10, 130-pound quarterback, Matt Stock, from saying: "We're not afraid. We're not busting our butts in this 100-degree heat every day to get beat up. We're going to give a good fight."

Armwood beat Wharton 57-0 (could have been 100-0) and Matt Stock was crunched time and again like a boot crushing a drink can.

And the losing tradition was set in motion.

The Wildcats' records the first five seasons were 1-9, 1-9, 2-8, 2-8 and 4-6, with the priority often nothing more than winning the Times Cup, a trophy given to the winner of the Wharton-Sickles game.

Sickles, by the way, also opened in 1997, which meant the Times Cup games were competitive but agonizing to watch.

So how, after living through all of that the past five years, did Wharton quarterback Ross Corcoran and running back/linebacker Larry Edwards have the gall to come up last spring, in total seriousness, and tell Wharton coach Richard Wood, "We're going to the state championship game this year."

Sure, Wharton had gotten better in 2001 when it won a school-record four games, but it also went 1-6 down the stretch, often getting pummelled.

"What can I say?" Wood said. "These kids just kept working hard. They kept believing in themselves, and they stayed together.

"There are 31 seniors on this roster, and pretty much all of them have been working together for four years, and somehow, they never lost the faith -- even after all that losing."

Senior linebacker Jeff Johnson turned it around and said: "Coach Wood always believed in us and so we kept believing in ourselves.

"Even when everyone was thinking how bad we were, coach Wood stood by us, and I'm not sure a lot of other coaches would have.

"We all stayed together, coaches and players."

And this, my friends, is why this was written about how bad the Wildcats were.

Because look at them now, a year after winning a school-record four games: They are 12-1 and have defeated some of the state's powerhouses, and they stand one victory from the Class 5A state final.

See, if Wharton can do it, then anybody can.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright