by Susan Savini (English Teacher)
svhsfootball.com
09-10-2006

Seneca Valley beat Wheaton the old-fashioned way Friday night -- with relentless, determined defense; with the perpetually pounding legs and passion of Shawn Perry; and best of all, without arrogance. Forgive me for cramming in all of those SAT words, but once an English teacher, always an English teacher -- and forever devoted to the chess game in motion that is SV football.

Does anything ever rattle Coach Kim? Apparently not. Holding penalties, sideline violation penalties, flags flying everywhere. Why should he get rattled when his team can rally from any setback? Why worry when Donald Langley and Mal Weeramunda need little more than a half gallon of water chugged and splattered on their heads before charging back to the line? Why worry when Jamaal Martin rallies the crowd, even when you have to wonder how he can still manage to stand up after those amazing saves on defense?

The crowd seemed a little tentative at first. Maybe it was all the hype about the new and improved Wheaton team, all the news crews hovering around, or the weird smell of hay that hung in the misty evening air like some swamp-thing vapor. But Seneca Valley showed the crowd and the talking heads that the time for talk was over and the time for action had arrived. Football is about teamwork, not about self-promotion. And my team showed up tonight. Jourdan Brooks just kept powering ahead, never letting setbacks get him down.
Fred Branch couldn't let himself sit down for long. Sean Neal pounded away again and again. And at every visit to the sidelines there was steady support from teammates and fresh ideas from focused coaches.

Donald Langley was constantly observing and adjusting -- by the second half I was hoarse from screaming his name, along with the moms screaming DEFENSE all around me. One SV mom was so focused on the formations that she was screaming "watch for the pass" before anybody in the stands saw it coming. And she saw it every time. Of course, the green-painted, half-naked guys (one of whom is in my AP English class -- who knew he wasn't the mild-mannered Joe Cressman he seemed to be) got the crowd pumped up more than the screaming moms ever could. I would like to see more people painted green at the next game: that means you, George Cunningham, and you, Jimmy Scott.

Back on the field, there was another of my AP English students, all 200-plus pounds of smiling Tommy Rothert, not only showing scary toughness on the line, but helping out on the sidelines as he and alumnus Wilson Fernandes leaned in to steady a cramping Mal Weeramunda, who couldn't wait to get back in the game. Of course, Mal was even more annoyed with himself after that little OOPS jump that I have come to expect in my years of watching the Seneca Valley defense in action -- after all, it's not easy to linger when the time to hit somebody can't come soon enough. But this is business as usual for Seneca Valley. Once again, Mal was also a great guy in my class - then he shows up on game day like some sort of monster truck with no brakes and a transmission that refuses to ever shift into reverse. Who are these guys who can be so respectful to their teachers and so driven to wreak havoc once they hit that sacred turf?

And who told Wheaton that Shawn Perry could be stopped by grabbing his shirt? Please . . . wait a minute. Maybe everyone is transformed by Seneca Valley football. After all, I am a mild-mannered English teacher in the halls of Seneca Valley. Well, mild-mannered most of the time. But something happens to me, too, when I get near that field. I become a shrieking, clapping, jumping, pounding maniac -- a screaming eagle who says unkind things at the top of my lungs about excessive officiating.