Brand
new start -
Jaguars start over with
Friedman
by
Jason Stone
ANTHEM
– It was not the kind of start to a football
program administrators at Boulder Creek were
imagining last November.
Just
weeks after the team completed its first year
in varsity play, the school fired Scott Heideman
the day before Thanksgiving, setting off a
protest of players and other students in front
of the school.
Older
players on the team felt betrayed by school
officials who they thought did not give valid
reasons for Heideman’s dismissal after a 2‑8
season. Some players said they were going
to quit the team, and the program looked divided
before it even fully got going.
But
new coach Dan Friedman saw a diamond in the
rough when deciding to leave a playoff team
in Goldwater to develop Boulder Creek. Not only
did BCHS administrators look to Friedman to
help build the program, but they looked at him
as the man who could smooth over some hurt feelings.
“It
took some time for some players (to accept the
new coaches), the seniors especially,” Friedman
said. “But then some of them eventually realized,
‘What else are we going to do?’ They wound up
coming out for the team, and bonded with us.
I always knew once the kids got on the field
with us, they’d buy into what we were doing.
”Friedman is hoping the cohesiveness he built
at Goldwater starts to rub off on Boulder Creek’s
program, which begins Year 2 with an early game
this week at Surprise’s Valley Vista.
In
five years with the Bulldogs, Friedman took
a perennial loser and turned it into a playoff
team in 2006. Boulder Creek, however, doesn’t
have a losing history–or a history of any kind.
The Jaguars weren’t even around long enough
to have an entire class go through Heideman’s
system.
Friedman
and his four assistant coaches scrapped that
old system in January and implemented a multiple‑formation
offense and defense. Because the Jaguars are
playing a week early this season, the Arizona
Interscholastic Association allowed them to
begin official practice in late July.
Because
of that early start, combined with a series
of camps and spring practices, Friedman feels
his team is game‑ready even though it’s
still only mid‑August.
“I
think we’ll be more game‑ ready than others,”
Friedman said. “We’re ahead of the curve right
now because we’re in such great shape. Our kids
were very well conditioned in (last week’s)
scrimmage at Trevor Browne.”
The scrimmage helped decide the quarterback
position. Junior Taylor Davis, the junior varsity
starter last year, beat out last year’s varsity
starter, Colin Hulse, after the two were neck‑and‑neck
throughout early practices.
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