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| LONGVIEW - They knew about Jessie Anderson, Jephaniah Lister and several others early on in the process.
But after the Longview coaching staff got its first look at the incoming seventh graders, Lobo head coach John King got a call about a player. "Coach (Chris) Vallery comes back and tells me about this little running back that no one can tackle," King recalled. "I said, 'Yeah, Lister' and he says 'No, there's another one.'' "Keilyn Williams."
Flash forward six years, all of those names they had heard about coming through the little league and middle school ranks - the program - had just completed their tallest task together to date in 2018, a 14-0 state quarterfinal win. King, unprompted at the end of his postgame interview with the media in Waco, ended with a quote, a personal one about the journey and the process of the Lobo football program. "This is one of those groups that's special," King said. "They're fun to be around, enjoy the game, enjoy each other and they play for the right reasons. "This isn't a football team that's built with a bunch of move-ins. This is a team that is Longview built. This is a community team and it started at an early age. That's what I'm so proud of. These kids have been through the program. This is Longview built and it's got a lot of pride to it." 'Longview built' starts at an early age, long before they wear the Foster Dragon, Forest Park Eagles or Judson Blue Devils uniform and the Rockin' L is just a dream they grew up with. It started in the community. "They would load up the car and go play football, any sport really, all over the state all year long," King said. "I went down to Corpus Christi with them one time in February. That was a trip to remember. "That's the great thing about these kids that they've got a lot of support, whether it's family, friends and people that have their best interest at heart. They kept them busy and involved, whether they were playing football, basketball, track, soccer, you name it. They kept them busy and out of trouble. No matter what, they enjoyed competing." Womack Field was the starting ground. It was the original Lobo Stadium, a place where the likes of Bobby Taylor, Trent Williams, Malcolm Kelly, Travin Howard are among a long list of future Lobos that cut their teeth on the field. Proponents of Longview youth football and Womack Field have voiced their concerns regarding the field and its amenities, which currently feature the original lights used at the 'old' Lobo Stadium. A bond package approved by Longview voters Nov. 6 includes more than $850,000 in improvements for Womack Field, according to reporting from the News-Journal's Jimmy Daniell Isaac. "There's some legends that have played down there that went on to bigger and better things on the football field but there have been a lot of really good players, homegrown football players, that left here with a lot of people knowing who they are," King said. "I think that experience down there needs to be a positive one and I think that it is. I enjoy going down there and watching those little kids compete, it brings back good memories of when I was a kid and when Haynes started playing down there too. "That's where it starts. That's where the fire is lit."
Of the 72 players on Longview's regular-season roster, 68 of them got their first taste of Lobo football at middle school and have gone through the program. King, in a quiz-like setting, listed every middle school for all 68 of the players. Foster Middle School is well-represented on this year's varsity team with alumni including Lister, Williams, Anderson, Kamden Perry and Gavin Roberts. Kaylon and Jaylon Allen, along with Marcus Williams and Marcus Harry, represent Judson. Jared Reese is a former Forest Park Eagle. "Foster Middle School, we had a lot of talent there so everyone knew what was coming," Lister said Wednesday with a laugh. After little league, the foundation of Lobo football is installed at the middle school level, from the base schemes of the varsity team to the schedule. Hitting the road representing Longview ISD is a first for most of them. "We try to play a full schedule with them and it's usually teams that we'll play at the high school level, Marshall, Tyler, Lufkin, teams like that," King said. "It's always fun to watch a seventh grader get on the bus to make an out of town trip for the first time. You would think it was the NFL with their headphones and everything." Scheduling is a big part of the Lobo program and it trickles down from the varsity schedule. King and staff enter each football season with the entire program in mind when it comes to filling out the schedule to ensure that every team, from middle school, to freshmen and junior varsity, have a game each week. Longview's 2018 regular season featured games with each level playing a team that varsity played on any given week with the exception of Ruston, La. That week, the Lobos filled that week with Liberty-Eylau. "When you start playing in a bunch of classics or out of state teams, you can't find sub-varsity games and that's not good for the program," King said. "We're going to try to play great competition, don't get me wrong, but we do try to keep is as local as we can because there's more to it than just the varsity game." Longview's middle school coaches have some wiggle room when it comes to the scheme that their teams are running. The base terminology and schemes, however, are areas that carry all the way through varsity. "They run our scheme but they have to adjust some things based on their personnel in order to give their kids a chance to win," King said. "We want the terminology to be as exact as it can be from what we do up here from a base standpoint. "We don't want them to install the wing-T or some air-raid offense. That's where the foundation is set."
Longview's high school coaches then make the trip to the middle schools in the spring, an important time in the process particularly for eighth graders, King said. "They're like seniors on that campus, they're not coming back," King said. "When our coaches go down there, it helps them realize that they're leaving that campus and coming to high school. "It shows them that we know who they are, we know their work habits, what they do and all of those things. It's a critical time." The following fall, it's welcome to high school for as many as 100 freshmen, who come together from three middle schools to one or two teams. King said the freshmen are often split into two teams with a chance to play on both sides of the ball. The Lobos honored 40 seniors in 2018. "I really thought I would start at running back," Lister, who made the move to defense and is a three-year starter at safety, said. "Keilyn, he was a quarterback. I think Kamden played some quarterback. Jessie was running the ball and tackling people. "We all around and everyone knew they just had to play their role to get the job done." It's a juggling act and a culture shock, King said, at times to figure out where everyone goes. The pace and grind are different. "Separating them into two teams enables us to watch them on both sides of the ball as freshmen so we can go into that spring with an idea of where they need to be, what best fits them and this football team," King said. "It's a little bit of a culture shock. The every day grind is different from what we do during the athletic period with practice and weights. There's a lot more eyes on them."
From little league stars to middle school to having the spotlight and more attention on them as freshmen, things change at the junior-varsity level. Competition for spots rises and scout-team duties are required. Thirteen current varsity players missed that transition year, which is on the high side, King said. "There's not many that get to miss that scout team year," King said. "This senior class had probably the most from what I can recall." Added Lister: "Making that transition, it was different. I had practice early in the morning and then would come back later in the day. You practice with the freshmen and think you're a superstar. Then you come back later with the varsity and everyone has talent, everyone plays faster and meaner. You have to adapt." It can prove to be a difficult transition. Winning helps. Longview's junior varsity, under coach David Ashley, is 37-3 in the past four seasons, including a 25-2 mark in district play. The freshmen are 33-4-1 overall and 23-2-1 in that same span, according to Lobo football historian Bill Simpson. The 'work detail' as King describes it is perhaps none more evident than this week as the Lobos prepare for Amarillo Tascosa's flexbone offense. Longview's junior varsity squads are tasked with emulating the complex offensive scheme. "It is a difficult year for a lot of them and we'll lose some from that freshman to sophomore year," King said. "With the freshmen, we place an importance on practice, they have their own athletic period and all eyes are on them. "As a sophomore, you get moved to the varsity athletic period and they get less attention because a lot of it is placed on the varsity." At this time of the year, the varsity's success trickles down to the lower levels. Every day at practice, the junior varsity gets their own period of practice to scrimmage against one another. Let alone making the trips all over the state. "We equate it to what bowl teams have at the collegiate level. They're getting 10-plus extra practices," King said. "This is our fifth extra week with our kids. "You factor in last year's five extra practices, that's 10 weeks, pretty much an extra season that a lot of people miss out on. It's good, it gives them a break from the scout team and then they get a taste of getting to see the playoff games and all these different venues. "It helps in the long run in a lot of ways."
Lister said it comes from deep inside, something that is just there from the beginning and emphasized from the start. "That mentality of Lobo football is ingrained from the beginning," Lister said. "It's a brotherhood. We can't let anything come between us no matter what. "It's always been physical. We've always been roughing one another up. It comes from deep inside. It's East Texas football and on top of that, it's Lobo football." Expectations are sky-high from the beginning of the journey into the program. Saturday's state semifinal game is the 1,125th game in Lobo football history, according to Simpson. Over 65 percent - 727 - are wins overall and 193 have come since 2000. "Their expectations of winning and succeeding is a factor," King said. "That's probably the biggest thing for them to understand is that, No. 1, there are no days off in Lobo football. We're going to grind it out every day. No. 2, there is that expectation to win but you're not going to win just because you have that 'L' on your helmet or Lobos on your chest. "You've got to go work hard and earn it. They might not understand initially how hard that work is and how those two things go together but they'll get it in the end." The expectations are bred from the youth football fields, like Womack, to the middle schools to Lobo Stadium. Stories are shared. Pedigrees and bloodlines run deep in the program. "I think the dream and aspirations to walk down that tunnel on Friday night and do the things that we do - things they've grown up hearing about - keeps them in the program long enough to figure out what it takes," King said. "It's not easy and it never has been around here. "Football is never going to be easy and it shouldn't be. It's the same with life." Next up for the program is the ninth state semifinal appearance in school history with a chance to play in its fifth state title game and for the second state title, which would be the first in 81 years. "This is it, we've got to go all in," King said. "No matter what happens, we've got to go all in and we can't give up. "That's what we've done since the beginning." |