Chris Caporale sports@wolfrivermedia.com
First-year head coach Andrew Meverden hopes to bring a young energy to coaching Gresham/Bowler’s eight-man football team.
The energy could be necessary for a team that went 4-5 overall last season and 2-4 in the Great 8 North Conference and lost nearly a third of its team after six seniors graduated from the team of 21 players.
Only 14 players came out for the team this fall.
To make up for the lack of numbers and experience, Meverden will have to implement some different aspects into the offense to get the results turned more in his favor.
“A lot of the skill players are gone,” Meverden said. “It will be a combination of stuff we have done in the past and new stuff that I will bring in. We will try to do a little bit of everything.”
The eight-man game allows for more creativity and a different style of play, generally higher scoring and faster-paced games for the 25 eight-man football teams across the state.
Meverden thinks those who discredit the sport are wrong, pointing to the athlete’s diverse skill-sets from needing to play offense and defense. He enjoys the style of the game more as well.
“It totally is like football. You get way harder hits, there’s way more space, there’s fewer people on the field, so there’s much more open space to build up speed,” Meverden said. “There’s a lot more offense excitement.
“It’s like arena football,” he concluded.
Gresham/Bowler, a team known in the past for heavily running the football, will try to develop a more balanced attack, something Meverden has focused on so far this fall.
Despite the low turnout for practice, Meverden is doing what he can to make it work. During the second week of practice, he interspersed jokes between drills with his athletes, a session attended by 10 team members.
Meverden, a former University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh football player, is trying to increase the conditioning for the players, something that was not a point of emphasis in the past. He even goes on runs with the team.
“He’s got a lot of new energy,” Gresham/Bowler offensive guard and defensive end Jared Rickert said. “He’s not just going through the grind. He went on some of the jogs with us, so he is relatable because he has been doing this recently.”
Bowler High School, with 100 students, and Gresham Community High School, 83 students, combine to comprise a team consisting of one Gresham athlete, Ryan Lassator, and 13 Bowler players.
Meverden is trying instill a joy of the game for the players while getting his athletes prepared for game situations.
“The expectation is to make them have some fun, to be competitive, and strive to make them get better at the sports they are playing and to get out there and enjoy it and have sports be fun, like they should be,” Meverden said, “and go out and win some games and be competitive.”