The halls of Emporia High School are adorned with banners proclaiming the arrival of homecoming, which begins next week, setting the stage for all the festivities and hoopla that surround that most sacred of all weeks for a high school student.
But perhaps the banner that best describes the mood that seems to emanate in the halls of Emporia High has nothing to do with homecoming at all.
On a brick pillar just inside the front doors hangs a banner that simply reads: “Can’t Hide Our Pride.”
The sign’s plainness is an ironic contrast to the message it intends to convey, but perhaps candidness was the desired effect.
One reason the banners’ message rings true these days is the Emporia High football team, with its 3-1 record and its best start to a season in years.
“When you’re winning, it’s like night and day,” said Bill Cinelli, a physical education teacher at EHS and former Spartan head coach himself. “The kids have a good attitude, the faculty has a good attitude, the community does, too, and the school in general — everything is positive. You can see that. I can see that.”
It seems everyone’s mind is on Spartan football these days.
“Even the kids that don’t play football, they’re a lot more involved in what we do on Friday nights,” senior safety Robert Keisler said. “Every day they encourage us to win another game. People out in public will come up to us and say ‘Nice game on Friday night.’ That always makes us feel really good.
“It happens quite a bit. Everywhere we go, people tell us good job. It’s nice.”
That hasn’t been the case the past few years.
At a school known for having champions on the wrestling mat and on the cross country course, football had almost been an afterthought when discussing Emporia High athletics over the past few seasons.
In 2004 and 2005, the Spartans suffered through identical 1-8 campaigns, and apathy — and empathy — set in.
“When you’re losing, every day seems like it’s Monday, you know what I mean?” Cinelli said. “Small things become big things. People have short fuses. Things just don’t look like they’re going in the right direction.”
For the Emporia High players, the will to put up a fight on the football field seemed lost. The spirit that defined a Spartan warrior of the ancient world was basically nonexistent in their modern-day counterparts.
“I don’t think anybody really wanted to win,” Keisler said. “I don’t think anybody thought we could win.”
So how does a team coming off consecutive one-win seasons suddenly switch gears and jump out to a 3-1 record to thrust itself into the thick of a league-title chase?
The explanation isn’t as sudden as the emergence of wins has seemed.
It took a complete overhaul of the team’s attitude by coach Bill Lowe, who arrived at EHS before the start of the 2005 season, and his staff. More specifically, it took a change in the way the team acted, thought and believed on and off the football field.
“Hold the rope — that’s what we’ve preached since the day I was hired here,” Lowe said. “With hold the rope, we always said it was the idea that if you are hanging off the edge of a cliff, who would hold the rope for you? We had to have them hold the rope and believe in each other and pick each other up. I think they’re all starting to believe that now. It has made a difference.”
The Spartans seemed to edge themselves away from the side of that cliff with a 21-14 season-opening loss to Blue Valley West. Though still a loss, Emporia High battled late into the fourth quarter before succumbing to a high-octane Blue Valley West offense and some untimely mistakes. Though beaten, the Spartans were certainly not out.
Unlike past years, the Spartans flourished instead of fading, as they rattled off three straight wins to surpass their win total from the past two years combined.
“It’s about knowing we can win now,” Keisler said. “We know we can win, and we have that want-to. We just have to go out and do it. We’ve done it three times so far, and if we work hard in practice, we know we can get it done on Friday nights.”
So the Spartans have a better attitude this season, and it has shown. But more simply, it’s not hard to see that the Spartans are playing a better brand of football.
Statistically, through four games, Emporia High is averaging more rushing yards per game (193.8 this season as opposed to 155 last year) and more total yards per game (256 this year; 190 in 2005) on offense, while allowing a whopping 213.2 fewer yards rushing this year (92.3 as opposed to 305.5) and 162.5 fewer total yards (219 compared to 381.5) per game.
Even the most optimistic of fans during the lean years have seen the difference.
“They’ve been so disciplined this year. That has helped a lot,” said EHS Latin teacher Dee Schwinn, who has not missed an Emporia High football game in 10 years. “Their last game (against Topeka West), they came out in that second half and just dominated. It was great to see.”
Emporia High’s season so far has had such an overwhelming effect on Cinelli, who coached the Spartans from 1982-89, that he called into a local sports talk radio show last Saturday after Emporia High’s 35-14 victory over Topeka West to voice his pleasure to Lowe, who appears on the show every weekend.
Cinelli’s message to Lowe and the Spartan football team was one of gratitude and encouragement for a job well done, and for best wishes for the rest of the season on behalf of the Emporia community.
“I did it from my heart — there was no other reason,” Cinelli said. “I just made a comment and a call from my heart and meant what I said, but by me doing that and them having the type of year that they’re having, it has really affected the whole community.”
As for Lowe, he only wants people to recognize the tremendous strides the program has made in the course of a year. He repeats time after time that if it weren’t for the players themselves wanting to create a turnaround, none of the team’s current success would have happened.
“I hope people get excited and get enthused about it for the kids’ sake,” Lowe said. “The kids have worked hard and put in a lot of time and effort, and I hope people get excited for that. The kids feel better about themselves, and hopefully, we get to where people can expect the wins to happen.”
Homecoming will come and go next week, taking with it the colorful signs and posters that announce its approach.
But that banner that hangs in the entrance at Emporia High — the one that says “Can’t Hide Our Pride” — just might stick around a while longer should the Spartans’ winning ways continue.
After all, it wasn’t all that long ago that the pride was nowhere to be found.
mrku (anonymous) says...
From a 1992 Grad.
BEST OF LUCK
GO SPARTANS!!!!
October 12, 2006 at 9:10 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )