Phoenix football back in action
The newest head coach of the Saint Francis varsity football team was influenced by a Niagara coaching great.
Carmine Provenzano, who helped Jim Whittard coach the Phoenix squad pre-COVID, played football at Niagara Falls Collegiate under legendary coach and Niagara Falls Sports Wall of Famer Doug Aitchison.
“He was the best coach ever,” he said. “He was very mild-mannered, quiet, very stern when he needed to be but not a yeller. Everybody wanted to play for him.”
Provenzano also coached with the Niagara Spears bantam squad before taking over the head coaching duties at Saint Francis this fall.
“The approached me and said they needed coaches and someone to step up so I did.”
Helping Provenzano with the squad are his son Carson, Marc Huot, Marco Al-Kayed and Roger Gemmell.
Together the coaching staff has got the Phoenix ready to open the season today against the visiting Denis Morris Reds.
“Our offence and our defence is set and we are in good shape. We are going through the repetitions,” he said.
Provenzano was thankful his team had a bye week when the season opened on Sept. 30. With five teams in the senior Niagara Catholic Athletic Association loop — Denis Morris, Saint Francis, Saint Paul, Notre Dame and Blessed Trinity — one team will receive a bye each week.
“We were very happy to get a bye. We were not ready.”
The Phoenix have come out of the lost season to COVID with healthy numbers. The team is young but has 35-40 players on its roster.
“It is mostly a junior team,” Provenzano said. “We have a lot of Grade 9s and 10s.”
With that youthful majority, it will be a challenging year for the Phoenix.
“But the future looks bright because a lot of our Grade 9s are great athletes,” he said. “Some of those Grade 9s are going to play, especially offensively in skill positions. We are going to have fun some on offence and we are going to try to get everybody into the games as much as we can safely.”
The kids have returned to high school football with a renewed enthusiasm.
“I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of kids that were interested, especially in Grade 9,” Provenzano said. “We will be good in a few years.”
The younger players are an enthusiastic bunch.
“They don’t get all the repetitions but they are still here, still learning and still excited to be here which is incredible to me,” Provenzano said. “In the past, when we had players who didn’t get repetitions in practice you wouldn’t see them again. We are consistently at 35 players at practice.”
The goal for the season is to learn and gain experience.
“We have a great quarterback in Jackson Stewart and he is built to play quarterback. We are going to try and keep him as healthy as we can.”
Other key player for the Phoenix are Nick Krieger on defence and Nixon Provenzano at tight end and defensive end.
“We are relying on those guys to help us cope during the year,” Provenzano said.
Stewart, a six foot 160-pound Grade 11 player, is thrilled to be back on the football field. He started playing quarterback at the house league level in 2016 and then improved enough to join the Niagara Spears. When he last played football, it was with the Denis Morris junior squad.
“It is awesome,” he said. “I didn’t realize I would have to go so long without football and I missed it so much.”
To stay in touch with football during the pandemic, he would go outside and throw the football with his dad.
“It was anything I could do to feel what is was like.”
Stewart feels football is an important part of the high school experience.
“You make friends,” he said. “All of these guys on the team I never really know them before football. We have only been out here for a couple of weeks and they are already my good friends.”
Stewart is aiming high this season.
“Hopefully we can win a championship,” he said. “They are all awesome and even with the Grade 9s you can tell they have a lot of potential. Hopefully we can build and get there.”
