School Spotlight: Archbishop Spalding High (MD

By: Tyler Barros

Archbishop Spalding High School is located in Severn, Maryland, about a 30 minute drive from both Baltimore and Annapolis. Archbishop is a private and catholic coed high school. Spalding football is a part of the MIAA A division, which is the top private school conference for football in Maryland. As of right now, Archbishop is ranked 6th for the top football teams in the state of Maryland (according to Maxpreps). Led by coach Kyle Schmitt, Schmitt took over as head coach in 2013. Coach Schmitt is a former Maryland Terrapins football player from the years 2001-2004. After that, he became a graduate assistant for the Terps and worked with coach James Franklin, who was the offensive coordinator at the time. He then moved on to become head coach for Atholton high school in Columbia, Maryland for about four years and ending up at Archbishop Spalding. This week, I had the great opportunity to speak with coach Schmitt about his team and their season.

When I asked coach Schmitt what’s he most excited about with this year’s team, he told me, “It is a young team, which is really exciting to coach. We’re playing with a lot of sophomores and freshmen in the starting lineup with some really talented kids. Last year, we went 10-0 in the regular season and 16 of those seniors went on to play college football. So, it almost feels like were starting anew a little bit, but as of right now we are 1-1”.

Further into our conversation I asked coach if there was any message or any words of motivation that he has been preaching to his team this past offseason and summer. “I talk alot about gratitude and being grateful for our opportunity, being grateful for our school, our administration, and just being grateful for every practice. I think that leads to kids being less shellfish, it leads to kids being more committed to their teammates, more committed to the program, and more committed to mastering their craft. There hasn’t been a really big message, I think these young guys get labeled with being entitled so quickly and so quick to judge them because of social media. I’ve really tried to stress to this group about gratitude and I think they responded”. Coach Schmitt also stated that, “We built this program on being really tough, outworking people, and out executing people. We are big on body language and just our approach in each meeting and each practice. We want to be different from other people. I think some of that can help separate us from our opponents, is just how we do things on a day-to-day basis. All these trends begin with cool warm-up dances and flashy uniforms. We kinda stressed to our guys a little bit about tradition and let’s be different from everybody else. Let’s separate ourselves in that way and then, obviously separate ourselves in how we play the game. Those are two things I would stress and that were messages over the offseason”.

While there are many talented guys on this new and young Archbishop Spalding team, here are some of the players that we discussed during the interview.