Young players offer hope for future

With 34 junior high players preparing for the start of practice in the upcoming weeks and peewee football signups underway, America's most popular sport continues to attract attention in the community, regardless of last week's announcement the senior high schedule was forfeited for 2010 due to insufficient numbers.

With the strong junior high turnout, and a surging peewee program, football fans will be able to continue to show their support for the blue and white, just not on Friday nights. Current plans will see Rector play a seventh grade schedule on Tuesday nights with the Junior Cougars taking the field on Thursday evenings.

"We're focusing on our young players and working to build up the program as a whole," head football coach Bob Alberson said. "We're looking at these young players as the future of our program."

Adding to that future is a seventh grade class which features several players from last year's district championship peewee program. As sixth graders, the players tasted defeat just one time last year, falling to McCrory 18-14 in the second round of the regional playoffs.

While the high school program is currently unstable, underclassmen at the senior high level will still be able to make use of the school's weight room for conditioning, in the hope of another opportunity to play in 2011.

"For the guys who want to play, this is a terrible setback for them," Alberson said. "You only have a limited window of time to play high school football. We're going to go over drills and do work in the weight room and keep working on improving as best we can."

At the peewee level, the addition of a third grade squad beginning this year will serve to introduce more local youth to the game of football.

"We think adding this third grade team will help give the kids who are interested in playing a good introduction to the game," peewee coach Kirk Ford said. "Football's not for everyone, but for those who love it, there's nothing like it."

While the third grade team will not travel to other schools, participants will go through regular practice with plans calling for a weekly game against the Rector fourth grade squad.

"We want to give them the chance to go out there and learn about the game and enjoy being a part of it," Ford said. "If there's a kid in Rector who wants to play football, we want to make sure they have the opportunity."

While there's no definitive way to tell what the future may hold, it's evident there are many in Rector who are dedicated to preserving Cougar football.