Salem County football: Schalick opens football camp with new head coach, new approaches on offense, defense
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PITTSGROVE – Kevin Leamy has been going to the first day of football practice for 15 years. They all look the same, sound the same and all accomplish the same thing, but there was something just a little different about this one.
For the first time, it was Leamy’s practice to run. He was calling the shots. He was setting the practice schedule. He was making the groups. He decides the way the team was going to play this year.
| SCHALICK |
| Aug. 18: x-at Delsea |
| Aug. 22: x-Buena |
| Aug. 29: Somerville |
| Sept. 5: at Cumberland |
| Sept. 12: Woodstown |
| Sept. 20: at Penns Grove |
| Sept. 25: Salem |
| Oct. 3: Paulsboro |
| Oct. 10: Gloucester |
| Oct. 17: at Glassboro |
| Oct. 25: at Woodbury |
| x-scrimmage |
Leamy was promoted as Schalick’s head coach in March to follow Mike Wilson and Monday was his first official practice as a head coach. It was a red-letter day, for sure, but, frankly, it was a lot like the other 14 first days he’s gone through.
“It was just another day,” he said after the brisk two-hour workout under overcast skies that saw him bounce from station to station. “I slept fine last night; I was already prepared. I knew what we were going to do. I already had the scout team books and everything done ahead of time. For me, it was just another day.
“I don’t think I’ve felt any different than it was over the summer. The structure of what we did today is very similar to what we’ve been doing all summer; now we just have helmets on.
“As it goes on the biggest difference is going to be game planning. Once I do it in a game I think I’ll get some of that first time, first day of school, nerves and stuff like that.”
The Cougars actually did some of that the first day in preparation for their Aug. 29 season opener against Somerville.
The players said the first day of camp under the new coach didn’t feel any different than previous years. They even made Day One a defensive-themed practice.
“Expectations are a little bit different because the guys who are coming in this year don’t know what it’s like and they’re learning, but everything went smoothly,” senior receiver/safety Dylan Sheehan said. “We’ve been doing the exact drills for three months now. The guys are getting it. It feels good to put a helmet on.”
“We’re really locked in on the season,” receiver Jase Volovar added. “We’ve learned everything pretty good so far and we’ve been rolling pretty good, so I think we’ve just got to keep going and going and building.”
Still, there’s a lot of new surrounding the Cougars besides the coach. There are new offenses and defenses they’re trying to install.
They’ve scrapped the 3-3-5 defense in favor of a 4-2-5 to lock down on the run and moved from the Gun-T to the Flexbone on offense to take advantage of the versatility of speedster David Stewart and take some pressure off the developing line.
“He gives us a lot of flexibility to put him in different places to get the ball,” Leamy said of Stewart. “Every time he’s out on the field teams are going to have to pay attention to him because if you don’t he’s gone in the blink of an eye.”
The Cougars needed to find a gamechanger after quarterback Kenai Simmons and running back Reggie Allen and Levi Feeney-Childers transferred. The quarterback spot this year is a two-man battle between left-handed junior Gary Simonini and sophomore Kenny Bartee. The running back spot is currently being run “by committee.”
“I just feel like we have doubters because we have a lot of new things and we lost a lot of players, but I feel like we can go far,” Stewart said. “Even though we lost a lot of players our guys are still good, I feel like we can match any team in our division.”
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