The Garfield Heights Varsity Football team earned its fifth win of the season last week, with a road victory over Brush High School, elevating their overall record to 5 and 1 and keeping their collective team goal very much alive, which is to advance to post-season play. Directly related to the success that the Bulldogs have had on the field, has been the opportunity to forge a keen determination and endurance due to a variety of factors and adversities, that had confronted the early days of the 2014 football season. With a conference-leading record to prove it, the Bulldog student athletes are demonstrating to the school district and to the entire community, that Bulldog Pride is alive and well on the gridiron, once again in Garfield Heights.
“The Garfield Heights Varsity Football Team has fought through adversity to reach this point in achieving five wins just past the half-way point of the season,” said veteran Bulldogs Head Coach Charlie Reisland. “We have a determined group of students, where everyone is pulling for the same goal of reaching post-season play.”
The varsity football team is comprised of twenty seniors this year, a rarity among most high school clubs, where seven are returning starters on defense and eight are returning starters on offense. This senior leadership has helped to create a culture of determination among all the members of the football team. They lead by example; and they motivate others to do the same thing. Those seniors include Jameel Miller, a senior quarterback, who has been injured throughout the early part of the season with a broken leg suffered in a scrimmage against Shaker Heights in August. Despite the injury, Jameel continues to lead by example, motivating his teammates with encouragement and an unrelenting drive to return to the field to play. Jameel is expected to return to active during week 7 of the season. In addition, fellow seniors Anthony Kastelic, Ben Gutzky, Nate Boufford and Isaiah Thompson have all provided leadership throughout the first six games of the year. And the Bulldogs have capitalized on that leadership to power through some of the early challenges of the first part of the season.
Adversity has been no stranger to the varsity football team this year. Injuries have plagued the Bulldogs since the start of the varsity season. In addition to Miller, at least eight other starting Bulldogs have gone down for some part of the season due to injury. In its match up against visiting Berea-Midpark, which serves as the only loss for the Bulldogs this year during the second week of the season, the Bulldogs were without nine starters. Notwithstanding this, the Bulldogs have remained committed to their goal. Take for example the sheer fact that the Bulldogs have been either tied or losing, headed into the final quarter of play in the last three games, only to push forward to ultimate victory in each of those contests.
“In a word, I would characterize this football team as ‘relentless,’” continues Coach Reisland.
In addition to injuries, an altercation that broke out during week one against visiting Collinwood High School, had the propensity to put a season-long black eye on the program. Rather, the opposite effect has taken place, where the coaching staff and the senior leadership have helped to use that incident as a learning experience from which every player on the team was given the chance to understand the importance of their role on the team, and to the community.
“We used that experience to make our players understand that they are representatives of the school district, and the City of Garfield Heights. We challenged our seniors to lead. We challenged the rest of the team to become more focused, “ said Coach Reisland. “Our theme this year has been to challenge our players to create their own respective outlook, and not allow others to do it for us.”
And focused this team has remained. With four games to go in the regular season, the Bulldogs are focused on one game at a time. “In a sense, our team resembles our community. They come to work every day, just like our residents, and work hard. They are a blue collared team, and I love coaching them, “ concludes Coach Reisland.
Despite adversity, the Garfield Heights Varsity Football team continues to persevere in pursuit of its postseason goal. In the next four week, two home football games remain on the 10th of October against Normandy and on the 24th of October against Valley Forge. Games begin at 7:00 p.m., so please come out and cheer on your 5-1 Bulldogs!