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| Coach Wical stands with the individual grade winners from the 2013 Cardinal Stritch Ironman Competition. (L to R): Coach Wical, Joe Sinay, Grant Curavo, Stephen Materni, Drew Beier |
by Brian Wical
Cardinal Stritch High School Head Football Coach
Follow @CoachWical
If you have been following my blogs at all, you will know that a big characteristic that I talk about often is the ability to compete. Our offseason workout program/competition is called “Always Compete”, which is also a motto for our program at Cardinal Stritch. The culmination of all of the work that we have put in takes place at one competition at the end: the Ironman Competition.
This is an idea that I stole from my playing days in high school. The head coach at Lima Central Catholic High School back then was a man by the name of Andy Etzkorn.
He always ran and competition at the end of the summer for us to show
how much we had gained during the offseason each year. As a coach, I
have had no experience doing this nor did I remember many of the events
he used to include in his competition. Having said that, when I put
together the offseason plan for us this year, I knew I needed to have an
event like this.
The premise is that there is 13 events, a mixture
of some weight lifting challenges, running events, and some other
random events thrown in as well. To me, this is a great chance for us to
get physical measurements on a lot of our players, while giving them a
chance to have fun and compete as well.
The guys came in ready to compete, and we even had one of our sophomores, Abel Castillo,
get into the competition spirit by wearing an Ironman t-shirt. I could
tell all of our guys were excited to be there and to compete. This is a
major upgrade from the attitude just a month and a half ago from our
players, even.
It was an extremely tight race down the stretch,
and literally came down to the wire. The final event, a 1-mile run was
the determining factor for the overall winner. Going in, junior QB/LB Joe Sinay had a one-point edge on sophomore WB/OLB Grant Curavo.
Grant ended up beating Joe in the event by just 14 seconds. This was
enough points to edge Joe in the overall competition by a single point,
296-295.
Not only do we award an overall winner, but then
each grade has its own winner as well. The winners this year ended up
being: Overall & Sophomore- Grant Curavo (WB/OLB), Senior- Stephen Materni (OL/DL), Junior- Joe Sinay (QB/LB), and Freshman- Drew Beier (WB/DB).
I believe all of our kids competed to a level
much higher than they even thought possible 6 weeks ago. This is very
promising as we move into our 10 coaching days at the end of next week. I
told our guys this at the end of the day: “you have put in more work
than anyone in recent memory at Cardinal Stritch. The good news is, you
out worked some teams with bad records. The bad news is, you’ve still
not won a game. The key now is can we take this momentum and hardwork
and translate that into our practices as they begin.”
I think our players have the desire to be a
better football program and to win. I tell them all the time though; no
one wants to win more than I do. The closer they can get my competitive
level, the more success this football team will have moving forward.
The foundation has been
laid for this program, and now it is time for us to start building upon
that. Only three more days until we take the practice field!
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| Coach Wical and Overall champion Grant Curavo after 2013 Cardinal Stritch Ironman Competition |
Brian Wical is in his first year as the head football coach at
Cardinal Stritch High School outside of Toledo, Ohio in the town of
Oregon. At 25-years old, Coach Wical is one of the youngest head
football coaches in America. Throughout the 2013 season, Coach Wical
will give readers an inside perspective of what it's like to build a
tradition at a school that has had only ten victories since 2007.
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