17 starters come back for Greyhounds
Cody Curtis is at home as the head coach of Salem football. Curtis, entering his fourth year as head coach, has been at the school for nine years and has loved every minute of it. Although the Greyhounds didn’t enjoy much success on the field last season, going 2-8, Curtis said it’s the way his team finished that excites him about the upcoming season.
“We only won two games, but that was with 17 sophomores,” Curtis said. “We only had one senior, and he played both ways, so we are bringing back 17 players that got a lot of experience last year. Two snaps of the football, we could have been 4-6. We took Marked Tree to overtime, and the kids never quit. We played Walnut Ridge the following week, and they were up four points, and we had the ball twice in the red zone, and we turned it over twice. Our last game of the season, we beat Midland, so we showed a lot of courage. We played our best ball in the last three games, and it showed the character of this group to play that hard with a 1-6 record. They never quit fighting, and I think these kids are going to look at their misfortunes and hopefully springboard it into a good season.”
Curtis draws on his experience as a Greyhound and growing up in the community as one of the keys to why he believes things will only improve for his team, and the fact that he has 17 returning starters who have been to battle in the high school ranks.
“My first job was here at Salem,” Curtis said. “I was the head junior high coach when I started and did that for five years, and then the opportunity to be head coach came, and I was selected for that position. I’ve been here my entire life with the exception of doing my student teaching at Highland under coach Clay Wiggins. He was at Highland for 30 years, and now he is here working with me years later. It’s really good having someone with his experience that I can turn to for advice.”
Curtis said he believes the defense will be much improved this year, largely because of the growing pains the team went through last season and all the hard work the players put in over the summer.
“Our defensive unit and linebackers have come a long way,” Curtis said. The 7-on-7 drills were a big plus, and really, just being a year older makes a world of difference. This defensive unit looks like a much-improved group of young men. The defensive line will be our strong suit. So we are real encouraged by our defense. We look like a different team. We have some impact players, but we still mainly want to focus on the fundamentals and playing as a team that will take us a long way.”
Curtis also said his staff tried new conditioning drills and mixed them up each day. Curtis said the conditioning drills and all the summer work are paying off, but he was quick to point out that a team only gets better by getting game-time experience.