The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Day 1 dawns for practice by Mentor, Chardon
D-III champ Chardon facing a turf delay, roster turnover
It’s safe to say Chardon football coach Mitch Hewitt didn’t see this coming when the Hilltoppers carried the Division III state championship trophy out of Massillon’s Paul Brown Stadium last November.
Yet as Hewitt blew his whistle to start the first day of fall practice on Aug. 1, he did so on the dirt practice field just above Memorial Field, which remains under construction from a turf project that will keep the Hilltoppers off its home surface until the midpoint of the season.
“It’s embarrassing. We’ve been slighted. Disrespected,” Hewitt said regarding the home football stadium’s turf project being botched and delayed to at least mid-September. “We’ll go play in a parking lot, practice on any patch of grass we can find in the district. We’re going to twist this (into a lesson in mental toughness), for sure.”
Because of the turf project being dragged out, Chardon will continue to practice on the grass field that surrounds the allweather track.
“We’re chewing up grass pretty quick,” Hewitt said, taking a midpractice break.
Both of the team’s scrimmages — Aug. 7 vs. Twinsburg and Geneva and Aug. 13 vs. Mentor — will be played on the road.
Additionally, the season opener against Glenville will be played at Riverside.
The Sept. 3 game against Youngstown Ursuline and the Sept. 10 game against Riverside will be played at West Geauga.
The 2020 season featured Chardon going undefeated and winning the Division III state championship, all while navigating through the year with the coronavirus pandemic hanging over the nation’s head.
“Yeah, we’re not wearing masks now and not yelling ‘spread out’ every five minutes,” Hewitt said regarding COVID protocols that were in place last season. “But what we’re going through now is a little different, that’s for sure.”
In keeping with a tradition the Chardon football program has held for 40 years now, the team gathered at Mentor Headlands beach at 7:30 a.m. on the first day of fall practice for rigorous workouts that included situps, pushups, standups and sprints through the sand.
After a short break, the team gathered for practice at the school in the afternoon.
Hewitt said the Hilltoppers, hit hard by graduation losses, are in no way a finished product. But he has confidence going forward.
“We lost a ton of kids and experience,” he said. “Almost all of our positive yardage from our backfield last year is either wearing work clothes or carrying a college book bag right now.
“We’ve got a long way to go, a lot of work to do. But we’ll get there.”