Phantom Stang
09-16-2010, 12:02 PM
Football's here, hoops can wait in Roby
ROBY — They haven’t had a winning season since 2004, and have posted only six winning campaigns in the past 24 years.
But the Roby Lions are off to a 2-1 start under second-year coach Nick Dickson, and are creating a local buzz usually reserved for basketball in a hoops-crazed community.
To put it plainly, the Lions are good — perhaps good enough to snap a six-year playoff drought. They might even be good enough to challenge for the District 7-1A Division II title.
In the meantime, an odd thing is occurring in Roby. Not only are many of the locals attending the home games again, but football suddenly has become the topic of conversation.
Irion County and Bronte fell in Games 1 and 2, and it took a last-minute touchdown by Miles in a 31-29 loss Friday to keep the Lions from starting the season at 3-0.
“It’s hard to get our town excited (over football),” said Stacy Stevenson, a Roby schoolteacher whose sons, Tanner and Trey, are both on the Roby roster. “But there are more people at the ballgames now. When you start winning, more people are interested in coming to watch you play.
“It’s good to see the stands full, and it’s exciting for the boys to get support ... I’m excited about it because you can see the confidence it gives them.”
Dickson can claim much of the credit for the new wave of enthusiasm, which began last season when he lead a team that had finished 0-10 in 2008 to a 4-6 record.
It began with inventive ways to make the game fun, including the insertion of a formation (the Maryland I) that the players had discovered while playing X-Box and wanted to use in a real game.
Dickson also has found a clever way to get players into the weightroom more often: yearly photos of them without their shirts on, so they can actually see how much the training is paying off.
“Last season, we had two kids who squatted more than 300 pounds. Dickson said. “Today, we’ve got 17 kids who can squat that much and four who can squat more than 400.”
Added maturity hasn’t hurt, with 15 of 21 starting positions filled with returnees.
One of them, senior quarterback Stormy Rasberry, has played varsity football since his freshman year and had tasted defeat 24 times in 30 games before this season.
“It’s always been about basketball in this town,” said Rasberry, who rushed for 126 yards and three scores against Bronte. “During that 0-10 season everyone just quit coming out because nobody wanted to see a bunch of guys lose football games every week. ... But we’re getting a big push this year. They’re all coming out, they want us to go far, and it’s pretty encouraging.”
And the prospects for continued success aren’t bad, courtesy of realignment.
Now shifted into the state’s smallest 11-man classification, the Lions have been grouped with teams suffering from the same set of enrollment handicaps.
For the foreseeable future, at least, the playing field will be a level one.
“The kids are really believing they can do it,” Dickson said. “They can tell the difference on the field. In the past, if we played a team like Stamford, we could put nine in the box, and their five would beat our nine.
“Now, the kids can see that they’re not getting their tails driven off the ball and we can win.”
The town is seeing it, too — so much so that Lions football players are no longer feeling like an annual warm-up act.
“Everybody was saying ‘y’all looked good’ after that first game,” Dickson said. “But after the Bronte game, they were saying ‘y’all ARE good.’
“The kids are telling me that people are coming up and saying nice things to them. ... Two years ago, they went 0-10 and everyone was talking about basketball before district even started.”
gofridaynight.com (http://www.reporternews.com/news/2010/sep/12/hoops-can-wait-in-roby/?partner=RSS)
ROBY — They haven’t had a winning season since 2004, and have posted only six winning campaigns in the past 24 years.
But the Roby Lions are off to a 2-1 start under second-year coach Nick Dickson, and are creating a local buzz usually reserved for basketball in a hoops-crazed community.
To put it plainly, the Lions are good — perhaps good enough to snap a six-year playoff drought. They might even be good enough to challenge for the District 7-1A Division II title.
In the meantime, an odd thing is occurring in Roby. Not only are many of the locals attending the home games again, but football suddenly has become the topic of conversation.
Irion County and Bronte fell in Games 1 and 2, and it took a last-minute touchdown by Miles in a 31-29 loss Friday to keep the Lions from starting the season at 3-0.
“It’s hard to get our town excited (over football),” said Stacy Stevenson, a Roby schoolteacher whose sons, Tanner and Trey, are both on the Roby roster. “But there are more people at the ballgames now. When you start winning, more people are interested in coming to watch you play.
“It’s good to see the stands full, and it’s exciting for the boys to get support ... I’m excited about it because you can see the confidence it gives them.”
Dickson can claim much of the credit for the new wave of enthusiasm, which began last season when he lead a team that had finished 0-10 in 2008 to a 4-6 record.
It began with inventive ways to make the game fun, including the insertion of a formation (the Maryland I) that the players had discovered while playing X-Box and wanted to use in a real game.
Dickson also has found a clever way to get players into the weightroom more often: yearly photos of them without their shirts on, so they can actually see how much the training is paying off.
“Last season, we had two kids who squatted more than 300 pounds. Dickson said. “Today, we’ve got 17 kids who can squat that much and four who can squat more than 400.”
Added maturity hasn’t hurt, with 15 of 21 starting positions filled with returnees.
One of them, senior quarterback Stormy Rasberry, has played varsity football since his freshman year and had tasted defeat 24 times in 30 games before this season.
“It’s always been about basketball in this town,” said Rasberry, who rushed for 126 yards and three scores against Bronte. “During that 0-10 season everyone just quit coming out because nobody wanted to see a bunch of guys lose football games every week. ... But we’re getting a big push this year. They’re all coming out, they want us to go far, and it’s pretty encouraging.”
And the prospects for continued success aren’t bad, courtesy of realignment.
Now shifted into the state’s smallest 11-man classification, the Lions have been grouped with teams suffering from the same set of enrollment handicaps.
For the foreseeable future, at least, the playing field will be a level one.
“The kids are really believing they can do it,” Dickson said. “They can tell the difference on the field. In the past, if we played a team like Stamford, we could put nine in the box, and their five would beat our nine.
“Now, the kids can see that they’re not getting their tails driven off the ball and we can win.”
The town is seeing it, too — so much so that Lions football players are no longer feeling like an annual warm-up act.
“Everybody was saying ‘y’all looked good’ after that first game,” Dickson said. “But after the Bronte game, they were saying ‘y’all ARE good.’
“The kids are telling me that people are coming up and saying nice things to them. ... Two years ago, they went 0-10 and everyone was talking about basketball before district even started.”
gofridaynight.com (http://www.reporternews.com/news/2010/sep/12/hoops-can-wait-in-roby/?partner=RSS)