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Pipeline to preps is running dry

Area's struggling feeder programs have had a major effect on Hernando, Central, Springstead and Nature Coast Tech to field winning teams.

By DAVID MURPHY
Published November 6, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - Make a right onto Broad Street and a left onto Martin Luther King Drive, and in about a half-mile you will arrive at a stretch of asphalt and gravel named Shayne Street. It stretches for maybe a half a city block and measures a car-and-a-half wide, but do not let its humble appearance deceive you. Here, in a radius of about an eighth of a mile, live three of Hernando County's top running backs.

At 809 Shayne is Rian Williams, by many accounts the most gifted football player in the area. Injured for most of 2005, he rushed for more than 1,700 yards last season.

A few houses down is James Thomas. After spending last year at quarterback, he has rushed for nearly 800 yards this season. And on the other side of the block is DuJuan Harris, among the quickest backs in the area.

"If we were all on the same team," Thomas said, "we'd win a state title."

But that's the problem. They're on three teams. Williams is a senior at Nature Coast Tech. Thomas is a senior at Hernando, and Harris is a junior at Central.

Each has taken a different path: Williams transferred to Nature Coast before last season. Harris is one of hundreds of black students bused cross-county in a longstanding practice that originated during integration. Thomas is zoned for Hernando. The trio is emblematic of a problem facing area coaches attempting to build winning programs.

The lack of continuity from grade school to middle school to high school and the absence of strong feeder programs has had a major effect on the ability of Hernando, Central, Springstead and Nature Coast to field perennially successful teams.

The excellence does not begin here: not at Raiders Stadium, not on Friday nights. The eight straight winning records, the four state semifinal appearances, the three region final berths: They are forged far from the glow of Friday night lights.

The root of excellence at South Sumter High runs back to the early 1990s, when a quarterback named John Kinley suited up for Raiders coach Inman Sherman. As a player, Kinley was an overachiever, one of those undersized players who, Sherman said, "thought he was 6-foot-4."

As a coach, it turns out, he is the same way.

After graduating from the University of South Florida, Kinley began working with Sherman to develop a program that now is a driving force behind the Raiders' dynasty.

Sherman calls Kinley's presence in the middle school program "the secret to our continued success."

The Raiders are riding a nine-game winning streak and have outscored their opponents 273-45 the past six games. Nature Coast coach Jamie Joyner calls it the University of South Sumter.

In many ways, it is like former district peer Hernando: small, rural and far removed from the football hotbeds of Hillsborough and Pinellas county.

Unlike Hernando, though, it has a middle school program whose primary goal is churning out future Raiders.

"You look at the powerhouses in the state," Hernando coach Matt Smith said, "and it starts on the youth level."

Sherman doesn't have any actual control over the seventh- and eighth-grade squads, but he is in constant contact with Kinley. The middle school runs the same offense Sherman uses, and the programs have the same terminology.

During the summer, the first hour of varsity workouts are open to seventh- and eighth-graders, which helps the younger players familiarize themselves with and learn from the older players.

"When they get that age," Sherman said, "we need to start preparing them for what we want to do."

For Hernando County coaches, preparation begins in the ninth grade. Unlike South Sumter, Hernando coaches have little interaction with their middle schools.

The root problem is the zoning, which results in the fracturing of middle school classes when they move on to high school.

While South Sumter High draws exclusively from South Sumter Middle, Hernando County high schools do not have dedicated middle schools.

"That's where the problem lies," Eagles coach Bill Vonada said. "Years ago, everyone who went to West Hernando (middle) went to Springstead and everyone who went to Parrott went to Hernando."

Of course, years ago, Hernando County was largely uninhabited. But there have been plenty of changes in an area that the United States Census Bureau lists as the 48th fastest-growing in the country. The area now supports four middle schools (West Hernando, Parrot, Fox Chapel, Powell), three zoned high schools (Hernando, Springstead and Central) and one magnet school (Nature Coast).

The average distance between the county's four high schools is 6.6 miles, which is remarkably compact when compared with Citrus County (13.2 miles between three public high schools) and Pasco County (22.6 miles between nine high schools).

Sumter County's high schools - South Sumter and Wildwood - are 17 miles apart.

"South Sumter is a perfect example," Vonada said. "It's a small, tight-knit community and everyone goes to school there. Coach Sherman has done a great job building that program, and the kids who grow up there want to play for South Sumter."

Not surprisingly, this year's 9-1 Raiders squad is led by players - quarterback Jared Fleming, wide receiver Carlos Everett and running back Matt Williams - who have been competing together in the same system since the seventh grade.

"Hopefully, eventually, each high school will be zoned and each middle school will be assigned to a high school," Hernando's Smith said. "But it's not going to work that way."

A quick glance at this year's eighth-grade admission records tells the story. Only one school, Hernando, drew more than 70 percent of its incoming freshmen from the same middle school. That makes it almost impossible to set up a middle school feeder program. "Unless I can convince two or three middle schools to run my offense, it won't happen," Vonada said. "I don't think the other area coaches would be too happy with that."

Central senior Gary Owen remembers his introduction to life as a high school player.

"I didn't know there were pass coverage differences," Owen said. "I'm like, "Cover 2? Cover 3?' They are talking about different blocking schemes and stuff like that that I had never learned."

Owen said it "absolutely" would have helped him had he been exposed to the varsity scheme as a seventh- or eighth-grader. "A lot of (players), it takes till their senior year to get it," Vonada said. "That extra two or three years could make a huge difference."

Greg Bigham, in his first season as head coach at Central, has noticed the ways in which a strong youth program would enhance his team.

"I'm going to see what I can do," he said. "In Arkansas, kids play together from grade school on up."

That is the case in Roswell, Ga., as well. A town of about 80,000 a half-hour north of Atlanta, it is home to one of the most competitive high school programs in the state.

This year, the Hornets are 7-2 and on Friday night faced Woodstock for the regional championship. They've made the playoffs six of the past eight years and have produced a slew of Division I players, including Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Jermaine Phillips.

The driving force behind it? The Junior Hornet Program.

Developed by coach Tim McFarlin a decade ago, this innovative youth organization has helped Roswell maintain a pipeline from the middle schools to the high school. The city already had youth leagues, so McFarlin approached them about implementing some of his playbook and terminology. Though the Junior Hornet Program has no official affiliation with Roswell High, McFarlin meets often with the board of directors - particularly when a coach is being hired.

"Our philosophy is real simple," McFarlin said. "We want them to become as comfortable as they possibly can with our system, and it has terrific benefits down the road."

The fact that McFarlin is familiar with his players as kids plays an important part in their development. Since 2000, Roswell has had 11 athletes play football at Division I-A colleges. That's two more than the school had produced in 13 years prior.

This season, the Raiders are led by sophomore quarterback Dustin Taliaferro, who has passed for 738 yards, 10 touchdowns and 3 interceptions.

"There aren't many sophomore quarterbacks playing competitive 5A football," McFarlin said. "But because we knew him, and we knew a lot about him, he transitioned straight from the freshman team to the varsity team."

Hernando County coaches say a similar situation would benefit their teams.

But Fulton County, Ga., is a different place than Hernando County. Fulton has different people, different geography and different circumstances.

Vonada, who with eight seasons under his belt is the dean of area coaches, said: "You have to deal with the cards that you are dealt."

[Last modified November 6, 2005, 01:59:22]