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View Full Version : Kentucky high school football squad prepare for season - Marine Corps style



Shaffer
08-01-02, 09:12 AM
MARINE CORPS RECRUITING STATION LOUISVILLE, Ky. (23 July 2002) -- When Knott County Central High School football player Justin Tate first laid eyes on the four figures clad in black T-shirts and camouflage trousers, he didn't know what to think.

He wasn't expecting to be called back out onto the football field for more wear and tear. The freshman, along with about 25 other Central High Patriots, had just wrapped up another day of football camp in preparation for the up-coming season. And they only had one more day left of rigorous training.

Suddenly, Tate and his teammates were rushed outside and told to line up: "Hurry up, let's go! What are you looking at? We don't have all night, ladies!"

"This is hell," said Tate. "I'd rather go midday, full pads then this."

Without time to fully process what's happening, the Patriots find themselves running around the football field ? led by the Marines.

The confused players don't realize their coach, J.J. Everage, has called in the Marines for some last-minute training to reinforce a winning attitude.

"If anybody can get into your heads, it's the Marines," said Everage. "Not the Army, not the Air Force, not the Navy ? the Marines."

The Marines are local recruiters who have come to brandish some last minute training ? Marine Corps style.

Everage called in the Marines to put his players to the test after multiple-winless seasons, he said. The idea came from fellow coach Maurice Dickson of Hazard High School, who called in the Marines last football season for the same purpose.

The Marines are: GySgt. Fred Ellis, Jr., Sgts. Sandra Lemmer and Wesley Trucks and Cpl. James Roberts. For more than an hour, Ellis and his crew pushed the football squad through grueling exercises, including push-ups, eight-count body builders, leg lifts and starbursts.

Many of the Patriots were pushed beyond their limits and resisted the temptation to walk off the field forever.

"This has been the problem," explained senior Bradley Falk, team captain. "We haven't had a test like this. It's really shown us how to work together as a team."

Last year's Patriots would not have endured such an experience, said Everage. Most of his players would have quit.

"There's nothing I could do to simulate this," said Everage. "They [Marines] make it intense, in your face, as bad as you can imagine. Then all of a sudden, they start encouraging (the players) and back down some."

In the locker room, the Patriots discuss what they just went through, before the inevitable Mr. Sandman takes over, and they are fast asleep.

At 11:42 p.m., the lights in the locker room flip on, and the Marines enter the compound again, barking orders like junkyard watchdogs - "Let's go! Get on line! Get your shoes on and get outside!"

The Marines were back for round two.

The players run outside and lineup on the football field again, expecting more torment, another "test." Instead, the Marines have something else in store: a "congratulations."

"You've got to play every play like it's the last one," said Ellis, who gave a few words of encouragement to the team prior to the Marines leaving for good. "Never stop, never quit. You can only lose if you quit."

At the end of the ordeal, the Marines award a "Marines" T-shirt, bearing the slogan "Pain is weakness leaving the body," to the player with the most heart ? freshman Nick Hall. The rest of the team received Marine Corps water bottles as reminders of their ordeals.

"You've got to have heart, you've got to have determination," said Ellis. "Always work until the end, until that last sound of the scoreboard clicks off in the fourth quarter."

"If they can survive this as a team, then they're going to be OK during the season," said Everage. "I can't say enough about the Marines. If there's an expert on this stuff, then Sigmund Freud ain't got [nothing] on the Marines."