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New coach pushing players with 'championship attitude'

By BRYAN BURNS
Published July 14, 2006

New Brandon High School head football coach John Lima looks out at the players in the school's weight room.

He spots someone leaning against an exercise bike, taking a quick breather.

"No sitting down," Lima yells loud enough to be heard over the clang of steel filling the weight room.

With the Eagles' summer conditioning workouts in full swing, Lima wants to make sure the team's players understand how hard they must work to be successful.

"Right now, I'm trying to push them harder than they're used to being pushed," Lima said.

Idle time is nonexistent to Lima, who spent the past five seasons at Port Charlotte High School, the first three as the JV head coach and the last two as a running backs coach and special teams coordinator.

The 37-year-old New York native took over the football program at Brandon in April after spending 13 years as an assistant head coach, eight in college and five at the high school level.

He inherited a team that won the Class 5A, District 7 championship last season and made it to the regional quarterfinals despite a 5-6 record.

"We're trying to get them to understand that they need to be focused completely on football," Lima said. "We've got a chance to be a real good team, but how good will depend on the effort they give now."

No doubt Lima's stint as a graduate assistant at Michigan State University under current Miami Dolphins head coach Nick Saban helped to foster his drive.

Saban knew how to develop a "championship attitude" and was "very detail-oriented," Lima said.

That, said junior tight end Adam Gieseking, is one of the first things he noticed about Lima.

"He seems to be very organized and disciplined. He's really pushing us hard and bringing us together as a team," Gieseking said.

So far, Lima likes the progress he is seeing.

"They've gotten a lot better commitment-wise," he said. "Everybody shows up on time. Right now, everything's going well."

After working out four days a week since June 7, spending an hour and a half lifting weights and another hour and a half outside working on speed, agility and flexibility, the players are seeing the progress as well.

"When we started lifting back in June, I weighed 150 pounds," said senior wide receiver Phillip Henderson.

"Now I'm up to 160. By the time the season starts, I hope to be 170. Coach Lima has really pushed us to get to that next level."

The players will continue their current workout schedule until July 31, when area teams are first allowed to practice using helmets and shoulder pads. Then, Lima will focus on installing and perfecting the offensive and defensive schemes the Eagles will use this season.

Under former Brandon coach Jim Wilt, who resigned after three seasons with a 13-18 record, the Eagles were mainly a wing-T offense.

This season, the Eagles will run a "NFL-style offense."

"We want to be balanced," he said.

Defenses might focus on shutting down senior running back Mike Brown, a second-team Times' All-Suncoast selection a year ago.

After all, the 5-foot-7 speedster in the backfield gained more than 1,200 yards as a sophomore and 1,500 last season.

"Everybody thought it was a fluke when I got 1,200 as a sophomore," he said. "Last year, I proved it was no fluke."

The offense, however, has enough playmakers this year to make other teams pay for focusing solely on Brown.

"You'll never know what to expect from us," Brown said.

Brown, who said he has received athletic scholarship offers from Arkansas, Iowa State and Akron, wants to be a leader for this team.

"I look out for the freshman and sophomores, push them and get them to work harder," Brown said.

The defense under Lima will also be a bit different from previous Brandon teams.

Wale Agbede, a junior strong safety who moved here from Nigeria when he was 3 years old, says the defense should be more aggressive.

"Coach is really focusing on how we move to the ball as a defense," Agbede said. "We want to attack and keep attacking to take the run away from other teams."

[Last modified July 13, 2006, 12:53:32]