Interview with a 'new' coach brings back old memories

Getting around to see some teams and coaches is starting to whet my appetite for football even more! I hope these tidbits will help whet yours as well. We’re down to one week until the games begin! And…at the risk of being smug, I say with certainty that it IS ‘whet’, and not ‘wet’, as you may see on various sports-related websites.

First, a quick tip of the cap to my broadcast partner, Brett Mills. He has a blog called Lone Star Pitch and Gridiron and he has posted a preview of the 2009 St. Thomas Eagles there. Brett and I got to see a lot of Eagle football last season and, while they struggled a lot in Donald Hollas’ first season, you could see glimpses of potential from time to time. It’ll be interesting to see if they realize any of that potential this season. We’ll see them next Friday!

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Meanwhile, I had a chance to visit with Todd Thompson, who will be in his first season as Langham Creek’s head coach. The story from that visit is now posted at the LSN website. Coach Thompson was the OC at Cypress Falls from 2003 to 2008 and talking with him about his career brought back some nice personal memories. When he talked about the 2004 playoff run by the Golden Eagles, I thought back to my older daughter’s freshman year.

Sarah was in the Cypress Falls Golden Eagle Marching Band in 2004, so I got to see many of the Cy Falls games. And, I managed to be able to broadcast several of those games for the broadcast group I was working for at the time.

Thompson talked about the Tomball game where Cy Falls unveiled their no-huddle spread offense and I remembered the Saturday afternoon it happened. They had a couple of underclassmen, one named David Brekke and the other named Ross Bruns, who had been tag-teaming the QB spot all season. I’m trying now to recall which one eventually won the job that week, but I think it was Bruns. I believe Brekke moved to an inside receiver spot.

The success of that game carried over into the Magnolia game the next week. The Eagles shut down Ray Kenjura’s team, 35-7, and finished the district season at 6-2. The team had qualified for the Class 5A Division 1 playoffs. I remember that the school spirit was through the roof…at least among the band.

The first playoff opponent was Eisenhower. I knew of Eisenhower’s reputation and, though I believe Richard Carson had already left by that time to go to College Park, I felt like Cy Falls had drawn a tough opponent and their playoff experience might not last more than one game.

But, that offense—that system—was something to behold at Klein Memorial Stadium that cool, windy Saturday afternoon. I remember sitting with my young son watching Cy Falls dismantle Ike, 34-13, and saying, ‘This is a pretty good football team.’

And they were. It was a team who had players like Andre Sexton and Ricky Price, who would move on to play big-time D-1 college ball. But they were so young then that who knew?

Falls would defeat Kempner in the second round that year, 35-17, again making things look almost too easy. Because the Division 1 playoffs just had one district representative at that time, Cy Falls had qualified for the Region III final against Westfield.

The Eagles had already lost to the Mustangs in their second game of the year, 26-9, and I remember hearing talk of getting revenge for that one. The game would coincidentally fall during the holiday week around Thanksgiving, and would be played the Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving at Rice Stadium.

But in that game, the youth of that team began to show against a venerable Westfield squad and the Mustangs forced turnover after turnover and coasted to a 42-14 win. At my house, it was okay, because—for my daughter—the novelty of extra football games had turned to dread over having to perform that same halftime show again and again.

Thanksgiving had come and gone, and now it was time to start thinking about Christmas. The Eagles had done enough to carry us that far.

That team would set the tone for the following two seasons when Cy Falls would play football into December both years. Those seasons bring back some fond memories too, but those recollections will have to wait for now.

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Speaking of Cy Falls…I also had a chance to visit with David Raffield, their head coach, in writing the story about Todd Thompson. We talked about his team—a team that nobody really expects to do anything this season—and I’ll share some of his thoughts on that in the next post.