Dear Coach:
It is now when you make the most difference with your players for next season, is it not? It is now when you regroup your team after a difficult postseason that ended Big Red’s dream of winning yet another state championship. It is now when you tell your graduating seniors they are still a part of Steubenville’s storied gridiron history.
You tell them their job is not done despite the end of the season because you need them to mentor the younger players so the legend lives on in 2022. You tell the young men to continue working hard so they may be able to attract scholarship dollars so they have the opportunity to perform on the next level.
It is now when you remind your returning players to make the weight room part of life and also to work on their leg strength as their bodies continue to grow. It is now (and always) when you remind them that hard work during the offseason wins titles.
Coach, since your first season in 1983 (10-0, first-round postseason loss) you have constructed a program not many local schools will even challenge. Year-in and year-out, Big Red football is the standard in the OVAC, and on occasion, across the state of Ohio.
And it is now when you seize the adversity of defeat and promote growth, and it is now when you address your youngest student-athletes to help them really understand the importance of Big Red football to the Steubenville area. It is now when they finally become part of the beacon that is Big Red football.
It is about reloading and not rebuilding.
Sincerely,
Fans of the Fire-Breathing Man O’ War
