Scrimmage Play October 2012 Digital edition

Scrimmage Play t h e c e n t r a l v i r g i n i a s p orts a u t hor i t y

vol 4 . issue 2 :: oct. 2012

Old School There’s only one ball for two old school running backs in Dillwyn page 17

We kno w field hockey Jessie Powell

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x’s and o’s

17

Old School

07

Sticking with it Western relies on receiving corps

11

Carrying a big stick Trio of award winners look to repeat

17

Double the trouble Buckingham’s running back duo

25

The Quickening FUMA puts it together fast

29

Over the top Miller paces FCHS volleyball

There’s only one ball for two old school running backs in Dillwynn

vol 4 . issue 2 :: october 2012

21 11

vol 4 . issue 2 :: oct. 2012

page 17

S ta f f Bart Isley, Creative Director Bob Isley, Infrastructure Director Ryan Yemen, Creative Editor Journey Group, Art Direction O n t h e Cov e r Buckingham’s Kenneth Johnson and Kyree Koonce M issio n S tat eme n t Local sports are the lifeblood of every community in America, and we’re here to reach beyond the basics and give compelling accounts about Central Virginia athletes to our readers.

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pregame

Extension

Hunter Etheridge (18) extends the ball for extra yardage against Blair Academy in September. In just his second start at quarterback for Woodberry Forest this season, Etheridge led one of the most miraculous comebacks in recent memory as the Tigers rallied from 26 points down to knock off Blair 43-33. Woodberry needed 36 unanswered points and a huge day from Etheridge through the air.

His 244 receiving yards and three touchdowns were insturmental, including an 85-yard toss for the go-ahead touchdown to Greer Martini. ✖ (Photo by Bart Isley)

October 2012 :: 04

pregame

Slipping through Jhalil Mosley (5) tries to escape a tackle attempt by Nathan Adams (top) and Kevin Lyda (bottom) during Monticello’s 39-25 victory over Goochland on the road. Mosley, who’d had a statistically slow start to 2012 despite Monticello being unbeaten, exploded for a huge night against Bulldogs, highlighted by a 72-yard scramble for a touchdown. ✖ (Photo by Ron Londen)

05 :: scrimmageplay

Hometown Football Fridays P r o u d ly p r e s e n t e d b y P e p s i - Co l a o f C e n t r a l V i r g i n i a

O cto b e r 5

October 12

October 19

octo b e r 2 6

P ow h ata n at W est e r n A l b e m a rle

Liberty Christian at Fork U nion

St. Anne’s-belfield at Covenant

Buckingham at G o o c h la n d

The Indians had their three biggest Jefferson District games of the year at home last year.

This year they hti the road. An athletic Western team looks to take down the defending champs in Crozet.

Two of the biggest dogs at the VISAA Division 1 level square off. This could be a playoff preview as Fork Union’s off to a solid first month of play and the Bulldogs are once again piling up the wins.

It’s been a one-sided rivalry with the Saints on top since the two squads began their football battles, but with some classic games in the mix. Can these two deliver the kind of product everyone enjoyed in 2008?

This could be a defacto James River District title game here between a pair of teams that are simply tearing it up on the ground. This was nail-biter last year and doesn’t look to be any different this go around.

PEP S I - Co l a o f c e n t r a l v i r g i n i a ­: S u p p o rt i n g l o c a l h i g h s c h oo l at h l e t i c s f o r d e c a d e s

First Quarter Sticking with it

Warriors make the most of deep receiving group

By Bart Isley

I

Just in like 2009, the Warriors are making waves with receivers like Daniel Kuzjak. (Ashley Thornton)

{ 4-wide }

Average yards per game for Western’s receiving corps through the first four weeks of play.

Kuzjak

117 60.7

He ar n

44.3

Cowan

20.3

07 :: scrimmageplay

K ar a El der

Drapanas

t’s the way most college and professional teams are set up now. Instead of one or two top-flight wideouts, teams are going deeper and leaning on multiple pass catchers in spread-style systems.

Western Albemarle has found a lot of success the same way over the past few years, starting back in 2009, when we dubbed Western’s quartet of wideouts — Dom Losco, Tyler Ward, Christophe Drapanas and Nick Kuzjak — the four horsemen. The unit of big, tall, savvy wideouts powered a 2,000-yard season for quarterback Stephen Schuler and handed Western Albemarle an offensive identity.

Rather than trying to run a lot of misdirection out of the single wing system as they’d done in the past, the Warriors concentrated on quick timing patterns informed by pre-snap reads by the signal-caller.

The system is a headache to defend against and it became even more dangerous last year when Kent Henry, a more prolific rusher than Schuler gave the system a different dimension. He also spreads the ball around much like Schuler does, getting Daniel Kuzjak, Nic Drapanas, Isaiah Cowan and this year’s lone new addition, Steven Hearn, plugged into the offense on a regular basis.

“He has his progressions and his reads that he goes through based on what coverage we see,” Kuzjak said. “He does find who’s open very well. He doesn’t look toward just one receiver.”

While the Warriors are under the direction of a new head coach in Ed Redmond, the offense shares many of the same concepts that the Warriors utilized under former head man Ed Pierce.

It’s just that now they’re running it faster.

Redmond has a no huddle tempo installed that Western can turn to at any time to

change the pace of the game. That suits the Warriors’ core, most of whom are multi-sport athletes and are well-conditioned to handle the pacing despite playing defense for long stretches in addition to their work on the offensive side of the ball.

“I feel like we’re one of the better conditioned teams and I can definitely tell when my (defensive back) is getting a little bit tired and I’m alright,” Kuzjak said. “I like that.”

Bringing back experience like Kuzjak (409 yards and five touchdowns in 2011), Drapanas (451 yards and seven touchdowns last year) and Cowan (302 yards and two touchdowns) and the triggerman in Henry is also a huge help. That’s 14 touchdowns and 94 catches back in the lineup, a rarity for a high school team.

While first year coach Ed Redmond is installing a different defensive approach and identity — one that paid off in a huge 21-0 shutout win over Liberty Bealeton in the early stages of the year, the Western offense hasn’t lost a step, and will surely give defensive coordinators throughout the Jefferson District some sleepless nights in 2012.

“I think we have the potential to be as good as that 2009 season,” Kuzjak said. “It could be led by this receiving corps because we’re all fast and we all have good hands. We have the potential to really be a force.” ✖

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Louisa gets first ever hockey win

By Bart Isley

By Bart Isley

When Woodberry Forest alum Ade Oyalowo graduated back in 2010, he was part of one of the most highly-recruited classes in Woodberry’s recent history. Aramide Olaniyan and Ed Reynolds headed to the west coast to play for UCLA and Stanford respectively while Duke Mosby signed with Wake Forest.

Oyalowo was a solid player on that squad, a two-way standout as a first team all-VISAA linebacker and a second team running back.

Oyalowo headed to Brown, following in the footsteps of his brother Akin, who graduated from Brown in 2007. Things got started a little slowly for Oyalowo, but after a year on the junior varsity for the Bears and a season as a reserve, the scrappy 5-foot-8 linebacker clawed his way into the lineup this fall.

He didn’t disappoint in his first extended action since high school either, coming up with six solo stops for the Bears in a 24-21 victory over Holy Cross.

Predictably, that’s not the only impact the multi-talented Oyalowo has had either. He also helped found Jockapella, an a cappela group made up of student athletes believe to be the first of its kind in the nation. ✖

It was a long time coming, but Louisa County’s field hockey team broke through in its fourth year of varsity competition and fifth year as a program with it’s first ever varsity victory in late September. The Lions snagged a 1-0 win over Powhatan to notch the school’s first victory since the program’s founding.

“This is a big step for the (us),” said coach Meredith Marconi. “It establishes us, regardless of how tenuous, in the district. Teams will know they need to take us seriously, we will not go down without fighting.”

Courteney Dunivan scored the lone goal with an assist from Kate Chisholm in dramatic fashion as the Lions scored in 7v7 overtime with the score knotted at 0-0.

Goalie Kelsey Stanley and defenders Rebecca Parrish, Sara Harris and Alyssa Slater combined for the shutout win over the Indians.

“They recognize there will never be another first win,” Marconi said. “They have been so hungry this season, more so than I have ever seen. They keep coming back more and more determined.” ✖

BELOW » Woodberry graduate Ade Oyalowo (44) worked his way up to play for Brown. (Ashley Twiggs)

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On the Sidelines

Remember what this is High school football programs are allowed regroup

T

hat I even have to put this out there is crazy, but it’s hard to listen to the chatter sometimes. There are a handful of football teams that had a rough September, and unless they buck the odds, probably won’t have that much more luck in October. Each one of them has a coach that has either won multiple playoff games, competed for state titles or at the very least, is universally respected by the rest of the coaching community for being class acts and remarkably creative considering the personnel they have to work with. When a community’s support, particularly in the public school ranks, seems to fall off on rebuilding years, a tough start to a schedule or really any adversity a team faces, then something is clearly broken.

It’s really unfortunate that there are a number of scenarios here this year where community is not, if not actively rooting against success, is pouring in unwarranted negativity to a group of athletes. When losing is the result of coaching, I can understand some uproar, some grumblings. But with each football team that’s had a slow start, I would gladly hire every single coach in this area not only given prior success, but most importantly, the conduct with which they handle themselves and their teams in these trying times.

These programs are down this year are down for really simple reasons. For some schools, it’s simply a case of being paired up against a brutal schedule. For others, it’s that you’ve had success in the recent past behind a highly-athletic group of kids. And for the some others, it just might be that the community reaps what it sows — it’s not your athletes, it’s the fan base.

For starters, I think any fan or parent has to remember, as insanely obvious as it should be, that high school football isn’t the NFL. Players aren’t drafted. They aren’t signed as free agents and most of all, they don’t get paid based on their performance. No matter the program, there will be a bad year. Sometimes there will be a couple of bad years together.

But one of the only ways to make it an era is if the community chooses to make it such a toxic environment that no kid in their right mind would subject themselves to such a lousy experience.

Let’s take the top programs over the last few years to prove my point here. Monticello won and competed for a state title in 2007 and 2008. How was their 2009? Pretty miserable.

Goochland was a 6-5 team coming into 2009 and got bumped up to Group AA and found a way to come away with a share of the Jefferson District title. The 2010 season was off by their standards, but 2011 ended with a Group A state final showing. Louisa County went to a state final in 2006, had a rough go of it in 2007 and has been to three-straight postseasons.

The one thing that these programs always have is an abundance of support, regardless of the coach, as both the Lions and Mustangs have switched coaches just recently. You’ll never walk into the gates of any of those places and hear murmurs of fans or coaches thinking they’re up for the slaughter. And further more, you’d never see any of those three communities seem to take solace in it.

So long story short, if your team is taking a beating this year, if you’re piling on, you’re not helping anything. And at the very least, you’re hating on a group of kids. As much as these athletes think they’re men – and physically some of them are – at the end of the day they aren’t and they’ll still be kids in college. If beating up on a bunch of kids for trying to build October 2012 :: 10

“It’s the nature of the business that everyone has to have a down year, sometimes a few.” something, in some cases out of nothing, happens to be your thing, stay home and shut up. You’re not a coach, you’re not a fan. You’re just being a problem.

It’s the nature of the business that everyone has to have a down year, sometimes a few. But how the communities that surround the school handle those down years pushes programs forward or backward. I’ll put it this way. The real winners continue to win because they act like they’ve been there before. But everyone had to start from scratch at some point. In years past I couldn’t say this, but this year I can – it’s not for a lack of effort from the athletes or talent from the coaching that is holding teams back.

There are such things as rebuilds. And the only way to make them worse is to ignore that and make trying times harder. ✖

Ryan Yemen,

creative editor

back talk »

How do you handle going through a rough season? Email Ryan at: ryan@scrimmageplay.com

Carryjng a Story by Bart Isley Photos by Ashley Thornton

a bjg stjck T here just weren’t very many seniors. Four

in total on the first team. Three on the

second team. The All-Jefferson District field

squad honored a grand total of seven seniors in 2011. Instead, juniors, sophomores and

freshmen dominated the ranks. That doesn’t happen very often,

but when it does, that usually means the ensuing year will be

a dogfight for district supremacy. The fact that the three major award winners are back almost guarantees that fact. Player of the year Olivia Hajek of Western Albemarle? Back. Offensive player of the year Kendall Ballard of Charlottesville? Back.Defensive player of the year Zoe Brents of Monticello ? Back.

That makes all three of those teams dangerous and a threat to win the district title. It’s also a testament to the fact that area field hockey is back on the rise as the region gets deeper and more competitive.

“It’s been great to see our program especially grow because before it wasn’t doing all that well,” Ballard said.

The emergence of Monticello over the past few years and Charlottesville’s 2011 resurgence under head coach Lindsay Larson could shake things up in a district that Western has largely dominated. Hajek has been key to the Warriors’ most recent streak of strong performances.

Hajek is a tremendous talent who moved to Albemarle County after growing up playing hockey in Virginia Beach, a hotbed for

October 2012 :: 12

the sport that’s home to storied programs like Frank W. Cox High (17 Group AAA titles all-time) and Princess Anne (three Group AAA titles since 2000). Hajek, who played in the Cox feeder system, joined a talented group at Western as a freshman back in 2009 and had an immediate impact. The savvy midfielder fit in well with L.P. Desch, Stewart Summers, Jordan Haws and Moira Wright who were already in place. Hajek was the same sort of all-around talent that Desch, a 2009 All-Scrimmage Play selection and current midfielder at Ohio University, was, and they meshed to create one of the most dangerous Western lineups in recent memory. The squad advanced to the state semifinals before falling to a loaded James Monroe team.

Since then, it’s largely been Hajek’s team to run and the Warriors have thrived, advancing to the state tournament in her sophomore and junior year, including a narrow 2-1 loss to Grafton last year in the final four.

Her senior year, however, is where expectations appear to be the highest for the Warriors, who bring back a lot of firepower beyond Hajek.

Tess Lohr, Jessie Powell and a number of other Warriors are big-time scoring threats.

“We’re definitely heavy on offensive players,” Hajek said. “But we’re trying to improve individual stick skills and control.”

The installation of turf fields at most area high schools with hockey

13 :: scrimmageplay

programs has had a big impact on Hajek in particular, whose game is built on speed. Her game is best suited for the Astroturf fields she’ll see at the next level, but the PlayTurf that’s been installed at Charlottesville, Albemarle, Western and Monticello is a major step up for the hockey community as a whole.

“Turf definitely exposes a person who hasn’t played on it and it isn’t used to the speed,” Hajek said. “It requires greater quickness and more technical skills.”

One player who didn’t have to deal with the grass fields of just a couple of years ago at the varsity level is Kendall Ballard. That’s because she was only a freshman in 2011 when she took the Jefferson District by storm. The multi-sport athlete, who after hockey season last year went on to have an impact as a starter in varsity basketball and lacrosse, is most proficient in hockey and it showed last year. She took offensive player of the year honors and a second team all-state nod to go with Scrimmage Play’s newcomer of the year award.

“Hockey is definitely number one for me,” Ballard said. “That’s what I want to be doing when I go to college.”

The simultaneous arrival of Larson and Ballard was a huge key to the Black Knights’ improvement. They nearly knocked off Western in the later stages of the season, and it was due in large part to the tall

“Turf definitely exposes a person who hasn’t played on it and isn’t used to the speed.”

— Olivia Hajek freshman and the sparkplug of a coach.

“She brings energy — lots and lots of energy,” Ballard said. “You’ll see her jumping up and down on the sidelines and we feed off of her.”

Ballard picked up right where she left off this season too, scoring four goals and an assist in the first two games of the year as CHS jumped out with a solid winning streak. Hockey players aren’t traditionally as tall as Ballard, who plays in the post during basketball, but she’s found a way to use it to her advantage.

“There are some people who are tall and it’s an awkward position for them, but I feel like because I’ve played it so long that it’s not that bad,” Ballard said. “Getting to the balls (because of her stride and speed) first and also a longer reach with the stick is definitely great.”

While Ballard took the offensive player of the year honor, Zoe Brents earned the defensive nod from the Jefferson District. Brents is a unique weapon as a defensive midfielder who is a takeaway artist in the offensive zone. Much like when an attackman during lacrosse marks a long pole trying to transition the ball, Brents is adept at forcing a big turnover and keeping the ball in the Monticello zone. She’s a big reason the Mustangs don’t give up many goals, even against high-octane attacks like Western Albemarle’s. Brents’ ability to anticipate makes that happen.

“I’m good at deciding where they’re going to go before they make a move,” Brents said. “You have to have good reflexes.”

It helps too that she knows she can take some risks with the group she has behind her on defense led by Mattie Morris and Rachel Harrison.

“We have amazing defenders and everyone always talks to us,” Brents said. “They don’t really get past us very much, but when they do we know we can trust our main defenders.”

That trust comes from the Mustangs’ solid team chemistry, forged off the field over the years, particularly with the current elder statesmen who’ve been getting a lot of varsity minutes from the start early in their career.

“We’ve known each other off the field for so long and we just bring

October 2012 :: 14

the friendship on the field,” Brents said.

Western, Charlottesville and Monticello all have that solid team chemistry that makes them a tough out for their district competition, and that can be a gamechanger when it comes to the postseason and a potential state title run. “(Western has) made it to the (state) semifinals for several years but in the final (during her career) it’s always been two of the (eastern) schools,” Hajek said. “I think (the improved play locally) is something that could have an effect.”

But someone is going to have to break back through, like the 2007 Western Albemarle squad that won the first field hockey title by a Central Virginia school in 27 years with an overtime stunner over Grafton.

With all the talent back in the Jefferson District in 2012, this might just be the year that the final has a little more Central Virginia flair. ✖

Only two teams can move on from the Region II tournament. Brents’, Ballard’s and Hajek’s play will more than likely sort it all out.

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e l b u o D Trouble THE

K

yree Koonce and Kenneth Johnson are bound together, part of a collective that Koonce himself dubbed the “fab five,” a quintet of standout Buckingham County athletes that also includes current

quarterback Cam Johnson and recent graduates Tarian Ayres and L.A. Briley.

Koonce and Kenneth Johnson are together all the time, hanging out with each other most of the time off the field as if they were brothers. That bond, however, persists in spite of one simple, undeniable truth.

There’s only one ball. And there’s two of them.

The two running backs are Buckingham’s offense’s main attraction. Koonce and Johnson make it nearly impossible for opposing defenses to contain Buckingham County and they don’t get their feelings hurt about whose turn it is to handle the load.

17 :: scrimmageplay

Story by Bart Isley Photos by Ashley Thornton

October 2012 ::

18

But don’t think for a second, they’re not keeping score.

“It’s real competitive,” Koonce said. “We’re friends off the field — and on the field really — but we’re fighting for that one spot.”

That internal competitiveness within their own backfield could potentially tear a team a part. Sure, quarterback controversies are a more likely culprit to destroy team unity, but when you’re putting the ball on the ground 93 percent of the time like the Knights did to start 2012, who’s toting the ball is critical.

Instead of tearing the Knights apart though, Johnson and Koonce have turned their competitive talents into the team’s engine, working to out-do each other on each carry while Buckingham piles up points and wins. After Maurice Taylor carried the load for a pair of special seasons in 2009 and 2010, Koonce and Johnson exploded last year and led the Knights to another big-time season, advancing to the second round of the Group A, Division 2 playoffs.

What was most impressive though is the steadiness the two brought to a team that at one point seemed bent on self-destruction. The Knights went through some turmoil on the sidelines during a midseason blowout loss to James River District opponent and eventual playoff team in Amelia. Things got emotional for the Knights, and could’ve easily been the squad’s downfall. But Koonce, the Johnsons, Briley and Ayres provided a steady hand and a calm demeanor that eventually won out and the Knights righted the ship. They nearly knocked off eventual Group A Division 2 finalist Goochland in the regular season and weren’t far off advancing to the third round as they fell on the road at King William.

Johnson went for 924 yards on 103 touches on the year while Koonce rushed for 693 yards on 92 carries. Johnson had 17 total touchdowns while Koonce had 16 total touchdowns.

Both are threats in the return game.

“They both run with enormous power,” said Buckingham offensive coordinator Zachary Penney.

Frankly, the hard part is telling them apart because they’re so similar in build and measurables. That’s because

19 :: scrimmageplay

“Whereever he is, I’m there with him.”

- K.Johnson

they’re both strong, forged in Maurice Taylor’s image. That’s a product of the fact that Taylor, the patron saint of the current crop of Buckingham skill position standouts, actually used to pick Koonce up for offseason workouts when he was in middle school and that Johnson played with Taylor as a freshman. Johnson squats 335 pounds on a three-rep max while Koonce, a year younger, checks in at 285 in that discipline. Taylor, now a Virginia Tech walk-on, was an excellent model for the young tailbacks.

“Whenever he’d leave to go lift weights or run the track, he’d pick me up,” Koonce said. “It’s non-stop lifting weights and football with him. He’s so athletic, he just rubs off on you.”

Taylor is the established archetype for what a Buckingham running back looks, runs and plays like. They’re quick, onecut-and-go guys who hit the hole with a fury. Both Koonce and Johnson have that ability. But there are clearly some intangibles that are at play too, because Taylor, the 2010 Scrimmage Play offensive player of the year, had a much wider impact than simply rushing for big numbers. Johnson recognized that as just a ninth grader.

“You need to be a team leader, be strong, don’t give up and keep on pushing,” Johnson said. “I (knew) I was next in line and I was working hard every day.”

They joined a program that was in the midst of a special run with Taylor leading the way along with guys like Taylor Boyers (a year before Kenneth joined the team).

Buckingham has made the playoffs for three straight years now, and a big part of that is the standard guys like Taylor, Boyers, Ayers and Michael Layman set. Johnson and Koonce have, so far, held up the tradition.

They’ve also created a strong bond within the team, which comes as little surprise since they’ve know each other since pee-wee football.

“It was kind of easy for us because half of the kids down there weren’t our size yet,” Johnson said. “We never stopped running the ball.”

That friendship took a step forward last year in their first year playing varsity football together and now, they

essentially come as a package deal.

“Kyree is like my brother,” Johnson said. “We’re always hanging out together. Wherever he is, I’m there with him.

We’ve gotten real close.”

On the field there are some slight differences. Johnson is the faster of the two, with more homerun-hitting ability than his counterpart. He also explodes every single time he touches the ball, hitting top speed little more than a step after a handoff.

“He can accelerate like no back I’ve ever coached,” Penney said.

That’s why when Johnson gets past the line of scrimmage

Kyree Koonce has become an electric running back on the prep scene as just a sophomore. With Koonce and backfield-mate Kenneth Johnson, opposing defenses have their hands full.

October 2012 ::

20

he becomes so intensely dangerous — pursuit angles by members of the secondary are little match for how quickly he’s picking up speed.

Koonce is the shiftier member of the backfield. He has an innate ability to change direction without breaking stride. He can play havoc with a defensive back trying to get a read on him with a quick change and never lose a step. Throw in his power that’s similar to Johnson’s and the ability to turn a short dive play into a long touchdown as soon as he hits the line and things get interesting.

“He’s fast, I’m fast,” Johnson said. “We both break tackles, we’ve got about the same amount of yards. We’re just the same. When he scores, I’m excited. When I score he’s excited.”

Last year, the two largely split time in the single back offense that Ayres ran to near perfection at quarterback while earning first team All-Scrimmage Play honors at the spot in 2011. With Cam Johnson — currently a more proficient rusher than passer — moving over behind center from wideout though in 2012, the Knights adjusted. Now both backs are, largely, on the field at the same time.

They’ve re-focused on keeping the ball on the ground too after Ayres threw for 1,541 yards in 2011, playing to the strengths of the current lineup. The old school approach is fitting for the Knights who can be at their best when they control the ground game as they did with Taylor carrying all of the load.

“Our kids love going to the power running game,” said Buckingham head coach Craig Gill. “They love the spread but they really love lining up and just running the ball. We’ll get in a power set and (the holes) just kind of open up for us. But we have to be able to do both. You want to be able to spread the field but also be able to flex a little muscle.”

Early on it got some big-time results. Through three games to start the 2012 campaign, they’d both crossed the century mark twice and in the other game against Appomattox, Johnson went for 159 yards and Koonce gained 95 on the ground. And how much did the offense tilt

21 :: scrimmageplay

toward the tandem? Cam Johnson averaged two passes per contest to start the year.

Koonce and Johnson’s versatility and ability to catch out of the backfield make that multi-dimensional shift possible with the same personnel on the field.

Imagine the headache that James River defensive coordinators will face this year with two big-time backs coming downhill against their front seven. Throw in Cam Johnson, who is cat quick and tough to catch when he gets to top speed, and it’s become a case of pick your poison for schools with Buckingham on the schedule.

“It’s just everything is coming at the right time,” Koonce said. “I feel like it’s going to be a big year for us. We should do great with what we’ve got.”

scrimmageplay.smugmug.com real game photos for real fans

“Our kids love the power running game.”

- C. Gill In Group A football it’s usually not enough to play on just one side of the ball, especially when you’re one of the squad’s top athletes, and Koonce and Johnson aren’t above mixing it up on the other side of the ball. Both standouts turn around and play defense, with Koonce lining up in the secondary, usually at cornerback, while Johnson plays

linebacker. Johnson was the squad’s fourth leading tackler in 2011 while also piling up more than 1,000 yards. He came up with 5.5 sacks on the year.

Along with Cam Johnson, they play nearly every down for the Knights.

“They’re both very talented,” Gill said. “They play both ways and not a lot of people realize that.

We have to do a lot of conditioning to do that and it’s a tribute to those young men that they’re able to do that and excel on both sides of the ball.”

23 :: scrimmageplay

Excel. That’s exactly what Johnson and Koonce are doing, taking a logjam for one position and turning it into the team’s most dangerous weapon.

The inventiveness of the Buckingham staff obviously played a role too, finding a way to help them coexist, but the way the two have adapted is just as critical.

Then again, Koonce and Johnson didn’t have much choice but to be unselfish and patient.

After all, there’s only one ball. ✖

The quick 25 :: scrimmageplay

Story by Ryan Yemen Photos by anna Isley

T

here’s almost a sadist attitude towards the way Fork Union’s schedule has come together over that last few years. An increasing problem for the top teams at the VISAA Division 1 level is finding teams that want to play. In FUMA’s case they’ve become remarkably creative, scheduling nearby public giants and then this year, going up against the ultimate test for a private school, playing one the largest premier public programs in Hermitage and doing so on the national stage for ESPN’s high school kickoff in Chesapeake.

The task was tall and the result was humbling, but what’s so interesting about the Blue Devils isn’t what happened in their rough loss to kick off their season. It’s that something clicked immediately after.

“It put us in the spotlight early and we were able to see our flaws real quickly,” said Micky Sullivan, who’s coached the program to eight state titles over his 29-year reign. “I knew that it was going to make us better or we were going to whine and cry about it. But this bunch, they said ‘Okay, we played poorly but now we’re ready to get better.’ We’re getting more physical and flying around the field more each game.”

FUMA’s next opponent in Georgetown Prep was one the single toughest games they play annually. For the first time since 2006, Fork Union found a way to come out victorious against GTP and their reward was a returning engagement to play the public powerhouses again in last year’s Group A Division 2 finalist in Goochland and the 2011 Jefferson District champs and Region II Division 4 semifinalist Powhatan. No problem, two convincing wins.

There’s something brewing for Sullivan in his last season at the helm. And as they march into October they’ll get to finally play their equals, starting with their Prep League opener against St. Christopher’s.

“At Fork Union it’s always about the growth process because our kids aren’t here for 6-7 years in the program, it’s usually just one or two,” Sullivan said. “We put this new piece here, this new piece here. Now they’re starting to believe that they can be pretty darn good. They have a real chance here. If they all get in the right place and I don’t screw it up too bad, it’s got a chance to be something special.”

As is the school’s staple whenever it’s mounted a run for a state championship, the Blue Devils are as good as their defense. With newcomer Michael Cook at defensive back, a University of Virginia commit, a good natured rivalry between the defense and the offense led by Penn State commit Christian Hackenberg has developed.

“Every game I come over and say ‘Hey, we’re doing our part. You’re helping, right?’” Cook said. “He’ll smile and tell me he’s got it. I still tell him though that his offense, they’re going 50 miles per hour. My defense, it’s going about 100. It’s become a competition between us. Each of us wants to better. He tells me in practice that he wants to make me work. That’s what I like to here. He wants to make me better.”

Offensively a big change has occurred with offensive coordinator Ben Paris now at Hargrave and former defensive coordinator Brian Hurlocker shifting over as the new OC. The Blue Devils have put a premium on being able to run the ball in an effective manner to allow Hackenberg to capitalize on the matchups his receivers face and the pass rush.

While things started out slow for this unit, through each of the first four games the Blue Devils saw both their passing and rushing attack improve by leaps and bounds.

“Offensively we’ve found our niche now that we can run the ball, something we couldn’t do regularly last year,” Hackenberg said. “I think going forward, that’s going to allow us to do so much off of play action because the pressure

quickening

October 2012 ::

26

Cook (27), Seigel (11) and Dudley (9) are flourishing in a new defensive scheme.

Sullivan, bottom, is having a blast watching it all come together.

27 :: scrimmageplay

is going to be there. It’s an evolving process though and we’re trying to get there weekby-week.”

For Hackenberg’s favorite targets like Roma Michael, the pressure shifts to them as they have to be at the right place at the right time. The window is small when the blitz is on and Hackenberg has no problem delivering a crisp release after the snap.

“We have to run perfect routes or the play just doesn’t work, because Christian drops back quickly and throws fast,” Michael said. “Personally my favorites right now are the screens and the hitches. The small routes for easy quick yardage are working really well. The ball is always on point and he just gets the job done so we can get the job done.”

With tackling machines like Dondre Wright and TJ Dudley at linebacker and an outstanding pass rusher in Brett Seigal on the defensive line the initial success for this team has been all about clamping down on opposing offenses and creating turnovers and long yardage situations. The addition of Sam Mavrick at defensive coordinator, formerly coaching for the school’s postgraduate team, has brought a new look 4-3 alginment instead of the 4-4-3 scheme the team ran in the past.

“In the new system it’s different and worked really well for me because everything is coming at me and I can see everything I need to,” Wright said. “We’re putting the right players in the right spots and it’s just clicking.”

A constant rotation on the defensive line has helped too. With the linebackers getting penetration and this unbelievably quick secondary, the play calling has been nothing short of extremely aggressive. And the defense loves it.

“We’re able to blitz seven and come after teams,” Siegel said. “The defense is getting to be really fun and that’s what it’s all about. When you’re having fun and getting the job done, I mean who doesn’t love playing football like that?”

The results in combination with the mindset of this group has allowed the Blue Devils to take advantage of the one thing not a lot of other schools have. When the chemistry is right at Fork Union, it has a way of becoming infectious.

“Coming together as a team, we can do that because we’re around each other 24/7 and not a lot of schools have that,” Dudley said. “We’re like brothers here. At the end of the year, you don’t lose track of anyone, it’s a family.”

A Fork Union team that has fun about playing mean, that’s about as perfect a storyline for one the true local legends in Sullivan as he heads into the sunset as far as prep football goes. Of course, he has a much better way of putting it.

“I’m not going quietly into the night, we’re not,” Sullivan said. “We want to finish this thing right.”

And that means as usual at FUMA, it’s state title or bust. Some things change, but that never has for Sullivan and his players. ✖

| O v e r

t h

H

e

t o p |

Story by Ryan Yemen Photos by John Berry, Ashley Thornton and Bob Kenward

Hannah Miller has all the traits you’d want from an outside hitter. She’s tall, flies above the net, swings hard

and has that natural killer instinct that seems to multiply all her attributes. In the last three plus years she’s been the one constant in the Jefferson District. Each season opposing defenses gear directly towards trying to shut

her down, or at the least, slow her down. And it’s that

combined with her unselfishness that has built her into one of Central Virginia’s most-talented and celebrated allaround volleyball talents in the last few years.

“This is my 12th season here and there have not been

many like Hannah, in fact I think Kayla Walker is as close as it gets,” said Flucos coach Christi Harlowe-Garrett.

“Hannah was our middle hitter as a freshman right out of the gates and started every match but two which she missed because of the flu.”

Miller’s rise to be arguably the area’s single best talent

didn’t happen overnight. Between her first start as a

freshman and next year where she’ll play for Christopher Newport University, she’s done just a little of everything.

But her journey at the high school level began right

when Walker and Mandy Kline’s impressive run was just finishing up.

“I was just looking up to Kayla and Mandy Kline when

I got started,” Miller said. “I just wanted to be as good as they were.”

October 2012 ::

30

“ She’s incredible now, but she still has so much potential

31 :: scrimmageplay

As a freshman in 2009, Miller was part of a influx of talent that included fellow middle hitter Mia Loyd and setter Sammi Toy. Those three in combination with their experienced senior counterparts were able to push the Flucos through the Jefferson District into the Region II tournament. But as good as she was a freshman, an awful lot was put on her shoulders the next year.

In 2010 the Flucos not only had to endure losing the reigning JD player of the year in Walker, but lost Kline, then also Loyd who would have been a junior that season but moved with her family to the Midwest. With a lot of new faces in the mix, Miller made the move from middle blocker to outside hitter. She and Toy continued to develop a rapport. She also started helping out on the back line and behind her play the Flucos were able to avoid taking a step back, once again qualifying for the Region II tournament by ousting Louisa County in the JD consolation game.

“That year she really started to turn her hitting on and develop more control,” Harlowe-Garrett said. “She worked so hard on getting better. She’s incredible now, but she still has so much potential.”

That set the table for 2011 where Miller had more refined talent around her and her coach was able to lean on her to be one of those rare do-everything players. After two years of playing at a high level but still transitioning from one role to the next, Miller thrived doing any of the tasks that Harlowe-Garrett gave her.

“She really worked on not coming out in the back row and as a freshman she came out all the time,” Harlowe-Garrett said. “As a junior she was able to lead with her actions. She didn’t have to tell anyone what to do because she just leads the way. She pushed herself to get all over the court. You couldn’t ask for a harder working kid. There was no drama, it was just volleyball.”

She broke the school record for digs and kills in a season and as a result, came away with JD POY honors making her the third Fluco in five years to win the award with Walker and Lindsey Hurt (2007).

“I think (the versatility) comes from playing almost every single position between my JO (club volleyball) team and here,” Miller said. “Having the experience and playing time all over has really helped with that.”

But with the Jefferson District slimming down from eight teams to six a third regional bid was no longer an option. The Flucos were ousted in the JD semifinals by newcomer Powhatan who snatched up the final playoff berth.

Coming into to 2012, the Flucos knew they were going to be relatively young, but a number of players garnered crucial experience in large roles including Maddy Kline, a freshman standout last year and now a reliable hitter for the Flucos to work in with Miller.

“The court maturity is unreal because you look around and

Miller has started in all of Fluvanna’s JD games dating back to 2009 as a freshman.

see just two seniors and two juniors and you can fill in the rest with sophomores or freshmen,” Harlowe-Garrett. “We’re so young, but this might be the hardest working group I’ve ever had and every single one of them truly wants to be better. They want to fix everything that might not be working.”

And it’s when Fluvanna has options that Miller truly shines. Because she can be such a dominant offensive weapon and teams have to prepare for that, the rest of Fluvanna’s offense has been able to grow to become more versatile. The Flucos have no qualms about using their star player as decoy on a regular basis to spread out the opposition’s block and increase the opportunities for kills for the other hitters, whether its Kline or junior Emily Haden.

“We have no problem with any team thinking that its going to go to Hannah everytime,” Harlowe-Garret said. “We love that.”

The big question mark for Miller and this team as a whole was how freshman setter Katie Stutz would step in for Toy. It’s never easy to throw in a new setter, but Miller’s experience and overall nature has made the transition smooth.

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“ We just have to play together as one, come to practice and push each other.

33 :: scrimmageplay

“She and Sammi had this connection that was unreal,” Harlowe-Garrett said. “It’s early with (Stutz) but you can already see that they’re getting there too. And a lot of that is because Hannah’s just a good, kind-hearted leader. She’s patient. You don’t get those often.”

For Miller, the challenge of being the vaunted senior on a relatively young team doesn’t pose much of a threat. She came into the season feeling comfortable with the relationships she developed last year with hitters like Haden and Kline. That trio has put their best foot forward in the first month of play trying to rekindle the chemistry they had last year and get their freshman setter up to an elite level.

“A lot of us were together last year so it’s about picking up where we ended off last year,” Miller said. “Katie has been great working with us at setter. We’ve got experienced hitters so that helps. But we’re really working hard on trying to make her into a really great setter.”

Heading into October, the buzz around the Flucos fans is that this is the team that has the best chance at making a run for the JD regular season and/or tournament title. Miller and Harlowe-Garrett aren’t the kinds of people that want to look that far ahead. With a brand new facility to break in this year, this program is as ‘one match at a time’ as ever. For Miller, she looks at the JD slate ahead with a simple focus, trying to bring her team together.

“I don’t think there’s a big hurdle for us this year,” Miller said. “We just have to play together as one, come to practice and push each other. We do that and we’re going to be just fine.”

By the time Miller’s done at Fluvanna she’ll likely own every record the school has outside of passing. It’s been a long road for her but in the next month and whatever rests ahead in November she’ll be that rock for the Flucos, the athlete that each of her teammates can count on for consistent play, and more often than not, a play that has no business being made.

She’s even-keeled, quiet and a true workhorse. But the example she’s provided over the last few years will impact this program long after she leaves for CNU next fall. ✖

SUPPORTING THE FUTURE SPORTS STARS OF TOMORROW

WHAT’S YOUR SPORT? William Grupp Dentistry has been supporting local youth sports for the past 15 years New patients receive a complimentary custom fitted mouth guard for contact sports

Mile Splits Meets to watch While the biggest meets of the year come in November, how teams improve their times leading up to that and most importantly, stay healthy, will give everyone a good idea of what to expect. Here are some meets that will showcase some serious talent.

September 29 Maymont X-Country Festival The annual race in Richmond is arguably the best barometer of the regular season. In years past both Albemarle and Western boys have shown well here. Keep an eye on the Fluvanna County girls team, last year’s JD champs, as they have a deep group of young runners back from last year.

October 2 Covenant Invitational The Eagles host a meet that will feature both a varisty girls and boys race as well as a developmental race.

An opportunity here for some of the private schools to sharpen up.

October 13 Albemarle Invitational This is to October what the FUMA invitational is to September. A deep field from across the state will give the Patriots’ boys and girls some serious competition here with district races coming up just two short weeks later.

35 :: scrimmageplay

Front runners

Taylor and Thomas flying ahead of the field | By Ryan Yemen

Just watch him during a junior varsity race when he’s cheering on the younger runners.

Western Albemarle’s David Taylor is one of the most energetic cross country athletes around and he brings a lot of passion to all things running. He’s been an integral part of the Warriors’s squad since 2009 as a freshman. Last year as a junior he emerged as the team’s top runner after the graduation of Derek Armstrong. The way Taylor kicked off the season, he’s providing a solid example from a Western team that lost a lot of talent off last year’s Group AA runnerup squad.

For Albemarle, the Patriots lost three of the area’s best runners, much less on their team. But junior Ryan Thomas has been poised to be the top talent for Albemarle since he exploded as a freshman during the 2010-2011 track and field scene. Also the runner-up but in Group AAA, the Patriots can rest easy knowing that their top athlete is going to hit the finish line with a time that will almost always compete with the top-3 runners at any meet.

The Patriots and Warriors don’t get to race against each other often, but when they do, both Thomas and Taylor know how to put on a show.

It started, as it does every year, at the end of August but in relay fashion at the Ragged Mountain Cup. Racing on the 3-mile course at Panorama Farms, it was Thomas who led Albemarle to the team title, but Taylor who left the meet with the top time as he edged the Patriot by 12 seconds, finishing first with a time of 10:09.

Just a little over two weeks later at the Fork Union Invitational, Taylor was able to lead Western to a first-place finish as a team as he crossed fourth overall on the 5-mile course in 15:40.28, and incredible average of

Thomas (left) and Taylor (right) are giving fans something to watch this regular season. (Bart Isley)

5:13.5 per mile. Just 13 seconds after Taylor completed his race, Thomas was right behind to take sixth overall with the junior running an average of 5:18.2 per mile. The Patriots finished fourth, just one point behind Trinity Episcopal for third and 37 points out from Western in first place.

At the end of September the cross country community will get to see these two celebrated teams and their top flight runners in Taylor and Thomas compete once more at the Maymont X-country Festival.

Based on the previous two times these two have gotten together, this should be a great inter-county competition. In cross country it’s usually teammates that push one another to get better. But it looks like Taylor and Thomas are pushing each other in a different way. ✖

Success stories begin here.

Success Story: Kelcy Quarles When Kelcy Quarles came to Fork Union to play for John Shuman’s post graduate football team, the South Carolina native had a 6-foot-4 frame and was filled out at 265 pounds.

Two years later Quarles is a hard to find, agile defensive tackle, but packing a 285-pound punch for Steve Spurier’s University of South Carolina Gamecocks.

Already committed to play for Spurier when he arrived at FUMA, Quarles chose to suit up for the Blue Devils in 2010 to try and refine his skills, an amazing area of expertise for Shuman and his staff when it comes linemen on either side of the ball. At Fork Union, Quarles went from threestar rating and the nation’s 91st-rated player in the country to a four-star rating and considered the third best prep school athlete.

With the experience he garnered at

the PG level, Quarles was able to join the Gamecocks in the spring of 2011 to be even more prepared for a true freshmen season. The preparation over the last calendar year showed as he played in 12 of 13 games and managed to start in the last six games for SC. In all he racked up 28 tackles as a cog in the middle of the defensive line and recorded a pair of tackles for a loss and added four quarterback hurries. In addition to his season high five tackles against The Citadel, highlights included a pair of four tackle games against Auburn and Tennessee.

Now a sophomore, but playing well beyond that considering his position, Quarles is poised to have a breakout season for the Gamecocks.

Three games into the year≠, the former Blue Devil had 12 tackles and three sacks.

Fork Union Military Academy is the leading Christian military boarding school for boys in grades 6 - 12 and PG. www.forkunion.com — 1-800-GO-2-FUMA

Overtime

A valuable lesson

Two athletes, one of them local, display incredible will

T

he morning after Jacob Rainey made his historic start at quarterback for Woodberry Forest, I was driving to a cross country race. Out of the backseat, my three-year old son asked me, “What kind of race is this again?”

“A race where people run.”

“Not a car race?”

“No, people will run. No cars.”

“Oh…Probably we’ll see a runner with no legs.”

Jack, often not by his own choice, watches a lot of sports on television, and during the Olympics this summer, like a lot of people, I was glued to the screen whenever Oscar Pistorious did his thing. Jack watched too, and since this is likely his only memory of track and field, it’s shaped his perception of a race. He knew it was cool and different that a guy without legs was running only because there were seven other guys in his heat that had two legs.

While I was marveling at the feat because I’d seen so many other races where nobody was running with prosthetics, Jack just saw another way to get the job done.

That’s part of what Rainey and Pistorious are doing. Strike that. Pistorious has absolutely done it. Rainey is in the process. You can see it in his postgame quotes. He’s not satisfied because Rainey, rightfully so, that doesn’t want to be defined by his prothesis, and now he can start figuring out exactly how much better he can get. Pistorious didn’t want to be defined by that either, or he’d have stopped at the Paralympics. Then we could’ve qualified his incredible career with “Yeah, but all the guys with two legs are still faster” or we’d just never have known about it at all. Now he’s an Olympic semifinalist, and that’s a pretty short list of athletes.

Rainey’s list is even shorter. No quarterback has recovered from a loss of limb and come back to play quarterback.

The technology is leveling the playing field, allowing athletes to compete at a high level. All the talk of Pistorious having an advantage is laughable. After years of being called handicapped or disabled, the guy is being told not having legs is a plus? Ridiculous. Like Pistorious said, why wasn’t everyone else with the double prosthetic in London then?

For an entire generation of kids like Jack who see Rainey or Pistorious doing what they’re doing, everything is going to change. The idea of what’s possible in athletics is going to change drastically, but let’s not make the mistake of thinking the technology is doing it.

The conditions around the two athletes have an impact — Pistorious’ mother said that he put his legs on in the morning and his brother put on shoes, but that that was the last she wanted to hear about it. At Woodberry, Rainey is around high-achieving students and athletes in the classroom and on the field. That’s an environment conducive to doing great things. But, while they play a role, conditions aren’t the overarching impetus for what those two have done.

It comes down to sheer force of will. You’ve got to be a contrarian — someone who wants to prove everyone else wrong to do it. You’ve got to believe in yourself when nobody else does — or they simply falter, which they will at one time or another.

37 :: scrimmageplay

“The idea of what’s possible in athletics is going to change drastically, but let’s not make the mistake of thinking the technology is doing it.”

I hope that’s what Jack picks up eventually from these guys. That will matters.

And that anything’s possible. Maybe some day, if we’re all lucky, seeing a competitor with no legs at a prep cross country meet will be a regular occurance, the new normal.

But there’s anything but normal about what these guys are doing. ✖

Bart Isley,

c reative dir ector

back talk »

Know of any other inspirational stories in our area? Contact Bart at: bart@scrimmageplay.com

Academic Edge sponsored by hargrave military academy

October’s Academic Athlete of the Month: Louisa County’s Cody Tucker Cody Tucker doesn’t mess around in the classroom where he sports a GPA north of 4.5 and is ranked in the top of five in the class at Louisa County High. He doesn’t mess around on the field either.

“He’s one of the tough ones,” says Louisa head coach Jon Meeks.

“Last year he played with a bad back problem. So if he comes out, you know it’s bad.”

The Lions’ 185-pound center, defensive end and long snapper translates that intelligence in the classroom to the trenches, where he’s required to angle snap and make line calls, adjustments and reads at center in Louisa’s multiple-set system. He’s a two-year starter for Louisa and a senior captain.

“He’s an athlete too,” Meeks says. “You’ve got kids that are smart in the classroom and then football smart and Cody, he’s both. He does a lot of different things.”

Tucker, who also wrestled for Louisa, would like to play football at the next level, but considering the list of schools he’s shooting for — Duke and UVa potentially among them as he looks to concentrate on biomedical engineering — he’ll likely look to walk-on as a long snapper.

“He’s one of the unsung heroes,” Meeks says.

About Hargrave Military Academy Hargrave believes individual achievement is a gamechanger for all students, both on and off the field. With a college acceptance rate over 99% and a heavy emphasis on academics, your son will have competetive advantages ahead of his peers including leadership and character development.

The Academic athlete of the month is selected by scrimmage play’s staff with the consultation of coaches and athletic directors. to nominate an athlete email info@scrimmageplay.com

1 - 8 0 0 - 4 3 2 - 2 4 8 0 | w w w. h a r g r av e . ed u Improved grades — 99% College Acceptance find us on facebook

Tracking down the winning smiles we helped create

(434) 296-0188

Mike Brown

He was unstoppable for Monticello at quarterback. It earned him a scholarship to Liberty University where his dualthreat ability drove defenses nuts. After he wrapped up his oustanding career in Lynchburg, Mike Brown was signed by the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars this summer to play receiver and participate on special teams.

Keep up the good work for the Jaguars, Mike. We hope your smile serves you well!

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scrımmageplay the central virginia sports authority

Digital Extra 47 20 qUesTiOns fOr fall spOrTs

11 The all-sp enD Of year Teams

scrımmageplay the central virginia sports authority

The Unsung Offense always gets the love.

Defense gets the job done. page 27

Scrimmage Play t h e c e n t r a l v i r g i n i a s p orts a u t hor i t y

vol 4 . issue 2 :: oct. 2012

vol 4 . issue 1 :: sept. 2012

Old School There’s only one ball for two old school running backs in Dillwynn page 17

In a case of a small idea snowballing into something more complex than anyone at Scrimmage Play imagined, the October issue is centered around going retro. As it turns out, despite vast technological advantages for us, turning back the clock proved to be a fascinating challenge.

It was a big shift in both thinking and design that should give readers an idea of just how much style has changed in 50 years. But despite the differences in eras, new school and old school concepts all have one thing in common. To make it all work, proper execution, Thankfully, all hands were on deck to make it come together. Here’s a roundtable discusion with the quartet that put it all together, photographer Ashley Thornton and SP’s Bart Isley, Bob Isley and Ryan Yemen.

Digital Extra Bart: It takes a little while sometimes to come up with a cover concept. You want to mesh the story and the concept together nicely so it’s an entire package. We knew we were going to be writing about the ground game and a throwback offense, so we started talking about how to do that.

Bob: Being a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan, (hence Bart being named after Bart Starr), I was always a fan of the Green Bay huckn-buck logo.

Bart: I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to hear about huck-n-buck from dad. He loved the old school football cards too so we had a bunch of those when we were kids, even some that came out of tobacco pouches before they were going into bubblegum packs. It finally fit perfectly with a concept, so we went after it in a big way.

Ryan: So when Bart and Bob came up with the huck-n-buck idea it took me two seconds bust out the rubber stamp, which in my case is an email saying “done”. As soon as they explained it, I knew what it meant in my mind, now whether or not it’s what they had in mind is a different thing. This was one of those projects that was right up my alley in the sense that I would have us go this direction every shoot, every magazine if I could.

There are two schools I subscribe to when it comes to design and it’s a simplistic modernistic approach with black, white and one primary or secondary color (at most two of either) or in the other case trying to recreate the vintage. I rarely get to do both in one magazine, but if you flip through it, I think you’ll see that’s what happened here. But getting back to the Buckingham piece, trying to wind back the clock started with a shoot and that wasn’t something I was able to attend thanks to a wedding in Canada.

Bart: When Ryan can’t be at a shoot, things get weird

sometimes. I can think through most of it and plan the photos around it, but he’s our details man — he knows exactly what’s going to work on the page.

Ryan: The idea was out there for Bart and Ashley to execute and I just had to hope those two would come through. There’s a kismet-like reason this company has grown each year and so much of it has to do with Bart and myself being on the same-page and our photographers being able to tackle our concepts and sometimes create something even better than originally planned. So I left for Canada completely carefree knowing that what was going to end up on my desk was going to be exactly what I’d want. It might sound simple, but when you have these variables, the photos, the concept and the design after the fact, and split between different people, and the execitioner so to peak out of country at the time of the shoot, you’re talking about a lot that can go wrong. But for whatever reason, I just knew this was coming to work out because all the right pieces were in place.

Ashley: It really wasn’t that tough explaining the concept to Kenneth and Kyree. All we really had to say was “Heisman trophy” and they immediately had a feel for the look we were going for. They both did a great job of emulating the style.

Bart: There are a number of good articles online detailing the history of the Huck-n-Buck, but it was basically created by this madcap photographer from the uber-popular magazine Life named Jim Laughead. He also shot for Sports Illustrated and he set the trend for years and years with his approach.

Ashley: It was tricky, I wasn’t too familiar with the style although I can remember seeing the old trading cards when I was a child. Certainly recreating any kind of style from a

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different era is going to be tough. I did look over some old trading cards before heading to the shoot just to get a feel for that style.

Ryan: After I got back Ashley had the photos separated, and there were a lot of them. The first task was coming up with a cover. I can say without question that from an hours standpoint, more thought and effort was put into this cover than any other we’ve done before. Very rarely does a cover just happen instantaneously. The only glaring examples of that came in June with Louisa County and going back to just our second issue ever with William Monroe’s Mark Sanford in September of 2009. For me the previous record of pouring in time for one page, albeit in the most important one when you’re talking about a cover, was set back in June of 2011. How that turned out had a lot to do with why we went with this approach.

Bart: Back in 2011, we wanted to honor the Louisa state championship track and field team, but getting them together during the summer was going to be impossible so we put together three photos from a long jump attempt by individual state champion Corrin Harris. We’d done one other illustration cover in the winter before, but this was the most ambitious by far.

Ryan: That Louisa track cover was a real hurdle for me because there were three photos and I had to find a way to make them all one. It turns out the experience there was a jumping off point. It’s always better to be lucky than good and when I put that cover together I took a drafting approach together, using rough cutouts of each photo that would look terrible in print, but convey the idea and sending them back and forth to Bart and Bob, tweaking

them each time before taking the plunge to what a cutout for a cover needs to be.

Bart: As Ryan regularly reminds me, cutouts aren’t easy, so you want to make sure when you do it, it’s worth it.

Ryan: I ground my teeth on cutouts the first few years coming up with the Weekly Briefings for basketball on the website. You should go back way in our archives for a laugh to see how elementary and slow I was when I first started out. My first one was a Blue Ridge/Miller piece that looks like it was made in the 1990s out of Claris Works.

The cutouts early were okay but what you quickly learn in design is that a great cutout is useless without the right background and accents. I really struggled the first few weeks trying to make it look proper. But after nearly two years of dealing with the process for web, it was time to make the jump to making it work for the magazine. Now with the cutout cover of Louisa in 2011, that was Bart’s photo and he wanted it cutout. The concept bothers a number of photographers and both Bart and I understand why, because when it comes to our writing, we don’t like people messing with our stuff too much either. The creative process is a punching bag joke for a lot of people, but unless you’ve been there, it’s hard to understand someone taking your work and playing around with it. With Ashley, this was her first cover shoot, let alone professional shoot for the magazine. While we explained to her what we had planned, we still didn’t want to step on her toes as a photographer.

Ashley: Generally I do not like seeing my work in a cutout form however when it is done correctly for a magazine or an ad wanting a form of artistic expression that’s a different story. I think that’s probably the normal consensus of most

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photographers. For this portrait session in particular, it was necessary to do the cutouts to make it look as real to the era as possible.

Ryan: Cutting out a photo is a tedious process, much less putting a couple of them together. In Adobe Photoshop, you have to literally outline the photo clicking on each point to make a move. In the old days they used scissors, and today the process isn’t all that different, just as difficult but with a mouse. When it comes to cutouts, you get out what you put in. The closer you zoom in, the more work you have, but it pays off in accuracy. For the cover, I didn’t mess around and I’d say you could’ve finished the Godfather trilogy before I was done cutting out the two photos for the cover and the two for the beginning of the story inside.

Bart: This stuff takes longer to do, but it’s also some of the most fun we have as writers or designers.

Ryan: I first pieced together a montage of different styles for the cover, toying around with fonts. The background was a problem until the very end but I stumbled upon our final answer there by accident when I couldn’t find a photo wide and tall enough to include the original background. In hind sight, we’d have shot a photo of the background with both athletes absent, but that’s not something we even thought about being an issue going into this thing. I had a yellow tint out front when playing with one of the backgrounds, and in anger, hit the delete button on everything but the cutouts, saw the yellow and suddenly everything made sense.

Bart: It just tied it together. It took it to an entirely different dimension. We’ve never dropped the nameplate,

it’s been largely sacred. But now it looked like what Scrimmage Play might have looked back in the 1960s if we’d been around. Or alive.

Ryan: When it came to the feature inside, it was key to offer some continuity to the cover so I ran with an old school font and the 1960’s football card look. This is what appealed to me most about the Huck -n-Buck process. I wanted to make our magazine have that look of a front and back of a card. So after the opening, I used a rough paper background.

I used rounded rectangles all around, whether with the photos of background colors over the paper to stay true to the retro flare. In all honestly, I think it took about a quarter of the time to layout the pages for the story, despite being more complex, than the cover. And it didn’t take too long to get to the point of worrying about doing too much. Less is always more, and by the time I rounded the corners of Ashley’s photos, I had reached the tipping point. There had been enough tinkering Bart: You don’t want to get cartoonish with something like this and that’s hard not to do. You don’t want it to be a parody of a bygone era, you want it to be an homage. I loved digging out old magazines my dad saved and thumbing through them when I was younger. This felt like it paid tribute to that.

Ryan: When you design a piece before you get the story you get a weird feeling because you want cohesion. After Bart sent over his story and I was able to read it, I felt like everything had come together just right. Not only had he explained why these two running backs are old school, but he also went back in time to the athletes that paved the way for Kenneth and Kyree. I thought that was the critical element that made this whole concept make sense. We’re trying to pay tribute to the old school look of magazine before us. These two running backs are trying to pay homage to those before them. There have been a number of shoots and stories where things have not lined up for us, but it was clear by the time we sent this one to the publisher that all the work we put into this idea came through in the pages.

Bob: This cover story is Scrimmage Play’s nostalgic look back to the days of some wonderful photography. Kudos to Ashley for capturing the magic.

Bart: I think we brought a little something old (the look) with something new (Buckingham’s incredible ground game) together in a pretty exciting package. We think you’ll agree.

Digital Extra Scrimmage Play t h e c e n t r a l v i r g i n i a s p orts a u t hor i t y

vol 4 . issue 2 :: oct. 2012

Old School There’s only one ball for two old school running backs in Dillwynn page 17