Gardner – Jason Spears’ first two years at PikeView haven’t gone the way he’d like.
Wins have been hard to come by, but he knows building a winning, sustainable program doesn’t happen overnight.
Even aside from the win-loss column, the third-year head coach has been battling. At one point during his tenure he was only able to field 15 players for a game. An abnormally low number when you consider the enrollment of the Mercer County school is north of 600.
This year projects to be different.
At practice on Wednesday, Spears had his truck parked near the practice field, blasting music as over 30 players were enjoying the second half of a two-a-day practice.
“I truly believe we’ve got something good going on this year,” Spears said. “My first two years – I was getting my feet wet the first year and the second year we had to deal with COVID and things like that. We had low numbers, I mean we finished the season with 15 players but at the same time the kids finished a 10-game season. These kids – some of them live 30 or 45 minutes away from the school and it’s hard for them to get to school so they rely on us being in school to be able to play football.
“But the kids have embraced football. They’ve been at it since February in the weight room and that three-week period the WVSSAC gave us has been great and awesome. We had over 40 kids here and things are moving and we’re building the culture here. We’re a brotherhood and everything is looking good so far.”
Normally Spears wouldn’t be quite as familiar with his team as he is at this point, but the three-week period leading right into August camp allowed him to build a rapport with his players and staff to drum up the excitement.
“Their attitude is like a complete 180,” Spears said. “It’s like they’re embracing the workouts, embracing the practices and having fun with it. It’s been very competitive out here too. I’ve seen a lot of good freshmen coming up that have an opportunity to play varsity.”
That time has also allowed the players to become more familiar with each other and build a bond – the thing Spears believes has stood out the most.
“Our strength right now is just our work ethic,” Spears said. “Their work ethic and their bond. They all hangout together and when we start practice they all go hard until the end. They’re very optimistic and they’ve got a winning attitude. This has been the most fun I’ve had in a long time. It’s been a good time hanging out with them and stuff like that but they’ve really put a bond together.”
Playing into the culture, Spears isn’t making grand proclamations about an undefeated season or state championship. He wants to start by making his players believe with others following form there.
“Our thing now is to make them believe,” Spears said. “We put ‘Make ’em believe’ on the backs of all our t-shirts and things like that. Our biggest thing is competing and making them believe every Friday. Every Friday we step on the field, we compete until the horn sounds at the end of the game. We’re just constantly competing. Do not let yourself get down. If something happens like they score first, we just pick ourselves up and continue to work hard. Just have a winning attitude this year.”
Contact Tyler Jackson at tylerjackson@lootpress.com, call him at 304-731-5542 and follow on Twitter @tjack94