VARSITY ATHLETICS

September 09, 2009

Meyer Reflects On Football's Road To The Top...

By Senior Running Back Greg Meyer (Clearwater, FL)

Four years have gone quickly. During the second week of the 2006 season I was a freshman frustrated with my playing time. Some senior (now my coach, James Rosenbury), had made me a backup for the first time. Our team was good, but our attitude was terrible. We were an afterthought on campus and many Saturdays we played like such. It was not that we didn’t care; we were just in a losing atmosphere. A culture like that is extremely difficult to overcome and acts as a cancer to any athletic team.

Like most of my new teammates at Case, I had a very successful high school campaign, three consecutive district titles and strong playoff appearances. In fact the only time I had a losing season in my football career was when I was nine years old playing in the Forest Hills Youth Football League. Now, I was a back-up on a 5-5 team.

Three years later our senior class holds a 22 regular season win streak, consecutive UAA titles, and back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time in school history. When we take the field on Saturday’s we expect to win. We have a Gagliardi finalist at quarterback, an All-American corner-back, two of the best linebackers in the country, a bevy of talented receivers, and some pretty good running backs to boot. We are no longer an afterthought, now we have a target on our back.

Last Saturday was our season opener against Kenyon. It was also the first annual Heritage Day, where we honored our great football history which dates back to 1890. For those of you who saw the game, you also saw our retro uniforms (see picture below). While it was great to honor the past, Brown and Red weren’t our most becoming colors. To be brutally honest we played one of our worst games since I’ve been at Case. We had turnovers in the redzone, our defense had several lapses, and we played down to our competition. That being said, great teams find a way to win when they are not on their A-game, and we did that. Like coach Debs said to us at practice on Tuesday, “there are a lot of good teams who are 0-1 after week one, but we are not”.

Like the past two years we must win out to be guaranteed a spot in the post-season. We don’t have the luxury of having an automatic bid for being our conference champions, which means every game is like a playoff game. Last weekend was a great reminder that we cannot take any opponent lightly. Our quarterback, Dan Whalen, brought up before the game that it had been 1,000 days since we had lost a regular season game, but it only takes one day to ruin that streak, and our playoff chances.

Over the past month, it has been hard to ignore all of the “lasts” as a player: my last max-out, my last fall camp, my last two-a-day, my last first game. I think it will be the little things that I miss most. Eating dinner together on Friday nights, Spartan-jacks with Ronald and Donald, having Billy Deitman roll my sleeves before every game, having Coach Slesh cover me during two-line drill (keep trying Slesh, you’ll get me someday), or rehashing Saturday night’s exploits on Sunday morning before films. That being said, one thing makes all of those “lasts” easier to bear; The fact that we have a great team who is poised to be playing 14 or so weeks from now.

This summer I had an internship with Mississippi State University’s football department thanks to an old Case teammate, Angelo Mirando. As an aspiring coach, I could not have asked for a better learning experience. I learned a lot of football, was exposed to the finer points of running a major division I program, and saw first-hand how initiate a turn around for a program that had fallen on hard times. Yet the most valuable lesson I took away from Starkville, Mississippi came from a speech Head Coach Dan Mullen gave to his players about the difference of being a group and a team. A group is merely a gathering or assembly of people, but a team is a group of people working in unison to achieve a common goal. There are a lot of groups in college football, but few true teams.

Aside from all of our accomplishments, I think that is what our class will be remembered for best once we play our last down, that we were an incredible team. On the field, none of us are athletic specimen, but we play unselfish, disciplined football. Off the field, much to the detriment of Case housing and our neighbors in Cleveland Heights, we are always together and having a great time. Bobby Bott does the best job capturing what our team is about when he says, “I love all ya’ll” in the locker room right before kickoff.

I think I speak on behalf of our team when I thank everyone who has been a part of our turnaround: the campus community, Hugh and his staff, all of the trainers, all the parents, and most importantly our coaches. It has been a great four years and the best is yet to come this season. Go Spartans.

Posted by: Creg Jantz September 9, 2009 12:08 PM | Category: Football

Posted by: cnj4 (Creg Jantz) September 9, 2009 12:08 PM | Comments (1) | Trackback