Chris Hays: Evans football players can succeed at home.
Tommy Hill probably doesn’t realize the significance of receiving a few college football scholarship offers this past week.
He understands the importance on a personal level, with Kansas and USF recognizing his abilities even before he steps on the field for his freshman season at Orlando’s Evans High. In the broader sense, however, Hill’s scholarship offers are even more important for Evans High.
It means things can be accomplished at Evans and players don’t have to go to other high schools to be able to realize their goals. For a rising star like Hill, showing the rest of the players in the Evans zone that they, too, can stay home and still get recognized is an accomplishment that carries a lot of weight.
Hill isn’t the only one. Rising senior defensive back Malik Glover and senior athlete Tyrese Bell also have scholarship offers and there will be more on the way as coaches start to get word that Evans football is making its return.
“I feel like we’re going in the right direction. We just gotta keep working and continue to get better,” Glover said.
The Trojans football program has been trying to recover from a devastating blow in 2013 when a new administration cleaned house in the Evans athletic department, which included the ouster of former athletics director
Soraya Lakatos, as well as head coach Chip Gierke and his staff. With Gierke heading out the door, numerous players left, as well.
Many players transferred and ended up earning starting positions at other high schools and eventually moved on with college scholarships.
Things could have been so different for Evans. The Trojans had won a district championship under Gierke and were coming off a 10-win season in 2012. They had budding young stars on the horizon and the future was bright for the Pine Hills school.
Then came the mass departure. Woody Barrett (West Orange, Auburn/ Copiah–Lincoln, Miss.),
Jalen Julius (West Orange, Ole Miss), Tyrek
Tisdale (Oak Ridge, Maryland/FAU),
Tashawn Manning (Wekiva/ Auburn), Tyshaun Ingram (Winter Park/ UMass), Daquan
Newkirk (First Academy, Auburn/Mississippi Gulf Coast) and Tre Johnson (First Academy, Miami), just to name a few, all left the school. Four coaches — two full-time and two interim — tried to do their best to put a tourniquet on the deeply wounded program, but to no avail. To his credit, Greg
Thompson finally had seen enough of the disarray of the program and the former Evans head coach took the reins again in 2014. He has set out to do things right. He’s using a little bit of the recipe that made Gierke so successful, surrounding himself with good coaches who are committed to making a difference in the lives of young people. Coaches like former Evans player Buck Manning and James
Middleton, and well respected defensive backs coach Terrance “Coach T” Larmond.
“We’ve revamped the coaching staff and we have a quality coaching staff now and the kids are familiar with the coaches and we’re working hard and doing the things that special programs do,” Thompson said. “I think this third year is going to be the year that we begin to see some of the benefits from doing things the right way.
“We’re getting kids to stay in our zone and we’ve got some of the best freshmen and sophomores in Central Florida. We’re not trying to go out and do a whole bunch of recruiting. Getting kids to stay in our zone and attend our school means the parents won’t have transportation problems for going to school.”
Keeping players home might seem like a simple task, but in today’s frenzied world of open high school enrollment, no one can ever assume a player will attend the school for which he is zoned. That becomes a difficult task for schools like Evans, which has seen some lean football years.
Many times, however, it’s not just football. Evans is situated in the most crime-infested area of Orlando and although public officials and the residents of Pine Hills are trying to change the atmosphere, parents are quick to react when they see an opportunity for their child to go to another school.
If it’s football that paves the way for a better situation, then so be it.
“Sure, some of the kids don’t have the financial parental support that some other kids might have … but as coaches we’re here to help fill in the gap and help make sure we can try to meet whatever their needs might be physically, academically and whatever counseling might be needed, and things like that,” Thompson said. “We have greater obstacles and sometimes what we might call a bad image that we get from the media, but the kids don’t resemble that. They don’t reflect that. They’re normal kids who want to get out and work hard.
“There’s a lot more to deal with in terms of crime and drugs and unemployment and things like that, but I think we can meet the needs of those kids. ”