- September 23rd, 2006, 10:24 am
#31285
From the Roanoke fushwrap:
A few good menhttp://roanoke.com/sports/college/wb/83873
VMI coach Jim Reid has enlisted volunteers from the Corps of Cadets to help out the Keydets' football team.
By Katrina Waugh
LEXINGTON -- It just wasn't working.
The inexperienced VMI defense needed to practice against opponents' offensive plays, but had only a handful of second-string defensive backs and receivers to fill the roles.
"It almost becomes depressing, that you work so hard and you can't practice the way you want," first-year Keydets coach Jim Reid said.
VMI had beaten Davidson by stopping a last-second, 2-point conversion in the season opener. But Reid knew his team needed help, and he knew just where to go for help -- the dining hall.
Reid got up in front of VMI's Corps of Cadets at dinner and made "a really rousing speech," according to Jeremiah Sexton.
"I thanked the corps because I thought that if it wasn't for the corps we might not have won our first game, if that 2-point conversion had been on the other side of the field opposite the corps the sound and the enthusiasm and the energy might not have been the same," Reid said. "I thanked them and then I asked them if they would help us."
Thirteen Cadets, including Sexton, volunteered initially and a couple more have signed on since.
"He sounded really serious, which is a big thing for me," Sexton said. "He really needed help and luckily we got enough guys out here to do that."
It wasn't just the chance to help the football team that pulled Garrett Smith in.
"I was also motivated by the fact that Coach Reid really wanted to cut down on the disparity between athletes and cadets at VMI," he said. "I think that's huge. I think VMI would be a better place if everyone was in the same boat.
"One team, one corps."
Members of the New Market squad, named for the VMI cadets who fought alongside the Confederate Army in the Battle of New Market in 1864, show up midway through the Keydets' practice in shorts and T-shirts, pull on helmets and run carefully-scripted passing routes against the defense. They run at full speed, but the defense is not allowed to hit them.
"It's absolutely awesome," Sexton said.
Some were standout high school football players. Quarterback Scott Bacci was actually a member of the Keydets' football team when he first came to school in 2004, but quit.
Robert Frazier played on a state championship team at Harrisonburg High School and considered playing for VMI, but when he got to school, he opted out.
Several others have little or no football experience.
Andrew Haines and Matt Clements started their VMI careers as baseball players, but quit.
"I'm a huge football fan," Clements said. "I never really played in high school or college, so thought it'd just be a good opportunity for me. ... It's fun, you run routes, catch the ball. It's good chance to meet all the guys on the team, get to stand on the sidelines during the games. Pretty fun."
Edwin Cruz played on VMI's club football team, and when that program folded, his roommate, Keydets free safety Joe Taylor, talked him into helping the varsity team.
"I had already bought some new gloves, so it was a good opportunity to put them to good use," Cruz said. "You run a couple drills, couple routes, then they let us go. It's an easy day.
"It's very fun, I enjoy it a lot."
Josh Gemedschiew started out running routes against the defense with the rest of the New Markets, then was switched to run with the Keydets' offense.
"It's tough," Gemedschiew said. "It's different than high school, much faster speed, much bigger guys obviously."
This is the first full week the New Markets have been at practice, and Reid is hoping that the extra work will start paying off soon for the 1-2 Keydets, who travel to William and Mary on Saturday and then to Army next week.
"Our pass coverage has been really, really bad," Reid said. "Part of it is because all these [defensive] guys are new. The only way they can get better is through experience, which they weren't getting prior to the New Markets."
Because the New Markets are regular students with previous commitments, not everyone makes it to every practice. If he gets eight helpers a day, Reid said, that's enough.
Where before he could run about eight repetitions of an opposing team's pass routes for his defense to practice against, an eight-man New Market squad can run about 24.
"They make our guys work really, really hard," Reid said.
Reid runs the New Market attack personally, and if it sometimes sounds as if he is cheering for them to beat his defense, well, he is.
"It points out a weakness and we made a mistake and we might not have seen that if it was a second group going half speed," Reid said. "These guys go full speed, forcing our guys to go full speed."
Besides, Reid likes to boost the morale of his volunteers.
"They're just terrific," he said. "It's what makes football at VMI a little bit special."
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