Bulldogs seeking return to playoffs
Greg Anthony’s first year at Strong didn’t quite go as well as he would’ve liked.
A five-game losing streak in the middle of the season, including just the Bulldogs’ second defeat at the hands of Woodlawn in their last eight meetings, left Strong with a 1-7 record.
Strong upended Union County rival Parkers Chapel in Week 9, but the Bulldogs came out on the short end of a three-way tie with the Trojans and Bears for the final playoff spot, missing the postseason for the second time in three years.
But as he heads into his second year, Anthony is confident the Bulldogs can make a return to the postseason thanks to a deep senior class that has stepped to the forefront.
“I feel a whole lot better right now than I did last year at this time. Not that I felt bad last year, I just had a lot of uncertainty last year about knowing the kids or how they would respond or
anything like that,” Anthony said.
“This year, I feel probably as good as I’ve ever felt with a group. This group of seniors is really, really responding to being leaders. I think they’ve learned and seen two classes since they‘ve been in high school, and it’s two completely different classes. I think they’ve decided which class they’ve decided they want to try and be like.
“The leadership part has really been impressive so far. They’re making people buying in to what we’re doing. They’re not giving them an option. They’re staying on them every day, and they’re making my job as far as motivation a whole lot easier than what it has been.
“I like to see that because this group of 10th-graders doesn’t really know what to expect right now. They struggled all through junior high with low numbers, and some of them didn’t get to play pee-wee ball, so they’re still in the learning process.
“I think the seniors are going to leave a foundation for these sophomores and juniors. They’ve decided to put it all on their shoulders and try to turn Strong around.”
The offseason was a busy one for Anthony, who doubles as Strong’s boys basketball coach, but he made it clear that the Bulldogs were going to have an offseason program.
“At first, I didn’t really know how we were going to work offseason because I coach basketball, and I have to go from football on Friday night to starting basketball right now because we’ve got a game,” Anthony said.
“I believed in what I had been taught, and in some of the programs that I’ve been in, you have to have an offseason program and it has to be year-round.
“We were going to have to have an offseason if we were going to be competitive because I can’t live with 2-8 or 3-7 or whatever it was. It’s not in my nature.”
An interesting facet to Strong’s offseason work was using track in the spring to help not just with conditioning, but also with competition.
“Everybody was going to participate in track, and we did this with the senior high and junior high,” Anthony said. “In a track meet, you can put only so many people in an event, and it’s usually three. So what we did was practice track Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We lifted weights and then ran. You’re going to run for football anyway, so you might as well run for track.
“The top three people that produced that week got to go to the track meet on Thursday. It really got them competing against each other during the week because they wanted to get out of school on Thursday.
“They wanted to get on the bus, go to the track meet and eat after the track meet. I think track helped us tremendously. It helped us as much as anything just from the competitive side, because they had to be competitive year-round. There’s no down time.”
Once the school year was completed, Anthony had the Bulldogs attend both football and basketball camps in an effort to make sure both teams stayed sharp.
“In June, I made a deal with them,” Anthony said. “Between the end of school and the dead period, they were committed to me. We were going to do as many football and basketball camps as we could do. Now the hard part is the kids have to pay for their camps, but they were willing to pay, so we went to three football camps and two or three basketball camps.
“They’ve worked from July of last year until June of this year in an athletic contest every day, so I’m really happy with the results that we’ve had so far. You can see a major, major difference.
“We’ve had increases in the weight room, time and body weight. It’s been really good. It’s at the point now where if we’re not lifting, they want to know why. Last year, it wasn’t that way.”
Late in the summer, Anthony received an addition to his coaching staff in Alex Howell, who played both football and basketball at Strong before getting the opportunity to play college hoops at Philander Smith.
“I’m really happy that Alex is with us because we needed a body with an extra set of eyes, and he is a hometown guy that was in the Kenneth (Dixon) era,” Anthony said.
“The thing with Alex is with these kids that are playing right now, they watched that group growing up, so they know him and relate to him, and he related to them.
“He is knowledgeable and a hard worker, but he’s also going to be able to pull that kid to the side and talk to him and get him to understand things in a way that maybe I can’t.
“He understands a little bit more maybe what they’re going through than what I would. His communication with them has really been impressive. He stays on them. He knows what it takes. So far, he’s been really good.”
Although the 8-2A stands to be a very balanced league, Anthony is hoping his team can rebound.
"We had a meeting the week before practice started, and I told Hootens the same thing," Anthony said. "I think there are two, possibly three teams that could finish at the top. Then I think there are two or three of us that are right there biting them on the heels.
“As a coach, you want to say you're going to win it all, but you have to be realistic about it. Harmony Grove has 45 or 48 players. That's twice more then what we've got, and they went to the semifinals and have a lot of returners. Rison is there year after year, and they're in the upper 30s. Bearden has somewhere between 30 and 35. I don't know for sure, so you're looking at three teams there with a lot of returners.
“Then you've got Hampton, who has 25, 26, and we have 25, 26, somewhere in there, and Parkers Chapel with 25, 26, so you have three way up here, three in the middle and Hermitage has 13 and Woodlawn has 14. Our goal is to go back to the playoffs. We were very unhappy with last year."