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JOHN C. COTEYThe 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.
Is there more magic at Boca Ciega?
GULFPORT - Jean Gordon did not pull rabbits out of a hat last season. He didn't saw anyone in half. He pulled no quarters out from behind anyone's ears.
Magic? No, Gordon says.
Last season's success was due to a group of players he had nurtured since their sophomore years, leading to one of those rare seasons in which quarterbacks and defensive backs and tackles - not the stars - align.
"They were warriors," Gordon said, perring out from under a ragged straw hat at his 2003 group. "We'll need to be that again."
Which leads us to the question: Can Bogie do it again?
In 2002 the Pirates started 0-3 before reeling off wins against Largo, Northeast and East Lake. That led to a playoff berth, the school's first since 1992, and a playoff win over Clearwater, the school's first. The talk of the county hopes to prove Pirate football was more than a brief conversation.
"Hopefully this will snowball," running back Shamon Washington said. "I know a lot of people don't believe it will. But we think we can do it again. We need to keep it rolling."
Proving the skeptics wrong is no easy task. The Pirates, 6-6 in 2002, lost a majority of their offense, including top backs Darryl Wilson, Mike Harrington and Ralston Garvey. Quarterback Jimmy Connors graduated, as did four starting linemen. And the biggest loss of all, wide receiver Carl Berman, is catching passes for Indiana State.
Bogie does return Washington, one of the county's most electrifying players. Gordon likes his quarterbacks, Marquis Curry and Terrell Skinner. And he has most of his defense back, a unit he describes as smart and knowledgeable.
The biggest problems for Gordon are bringing together an offense of new starters and making his defense nasty.
"I think you'll see that toughness," linebacker Larry McGeorge said. "We've got the talent. We lost a lot on offense, but if you look at the defense it's really all still there. It's just a matter of us all fitting in.
"Overall we have a chance to go far again. We just need to get that first win. We can't wait and go 0-3 again."
Momentum - Bogie won six of eight until a loss to Naples in the second round of the playoffs - should be a friend, McGeorge said. Last season's surprising run caused the Bogie bandwagon to overload - "people who were criticizing early in the year were telling us we'll see you at the game by the end of the year" - but he thinks interest in the program might lure some talent out of the school's hallways.
Gordon hasn't noticed if such an effect will take place. He says there are a few sleepers in the midst but isn't counting on them. If they come through, however, a repeat isn't out of the question.
"From what I'm hearing everyone in the county is a little down this year, so that helps," Gordon said. "Then it will be the guys that work the hardest that are going to have the best years. That's what I'm telling the guys. If we can work hard, we can have more success."
Gordon would like to see it, if anything to push his program closer to the level of what he calls the county's perpetual winners such as Seminole and Northeast.
Boca Ciega has had back-to-back .500 seasons or better only four times and not since 1986-87. The past four times the Pirates have finished .500, they have finished an average of 3-7 the next season.
"The big thing is, we can't just let this drop," Gordon said, "or everyone will be able to say it was just one of those years."