Spears gear up for 20th campaign
This season will be a milestone one for the Niagara Spears travel football program.
Players have been hard at work inside at Youngs Sportsplex getting ready for the program’s 20th year of play.
Varsity Spears head coach Brian Duguay has been with the Spears since the beginning. He has been the varsity coach since 2012 and before that was head coach of the junior varsity squad.
He has a one-word answer about what brings him back year after year.
“It’s the players,” he said. “It is the enjoyment of seeing these guys progress and move on. I have eight players on my coaching staff who used to play and they are coming back and helping out. When I step away, these guys are going to take over. And we also have some high school coaches here. The brand has taken off.”
On the Spears’ three teams, there are 12 coaches who played for the program, including several who suited up at the university and Canadian Junior Football League level.
Duguay loves what it does for players in Niagara.
“It’s helping a lot of guys who are not getting looked at with their high school teams. I am not being mean to their high school coaches but it gives these guys the extra vision that some universities can have on them. When the universities are going to high schools, they are hearing about the guy that is a blue chipper. They are not going to look at the guy who is the grinder. When they come out in the summertime they have more time to come to a practice and evaluate them more at the practice level and then see what they are like in a game.”
Junior varsity coach Brad Martin, who has also been a long-time coach in the program, is also a big fan of the Spears.
“It is a vehicle for kids to get more focused positional coaching and it’s also the level of competition. We play in the upper division against the best programs in the entire province,” he said. “Odds are you are playing against one of the top four or five guys in the province that are being recruited for that position. You are going against the best every Saturday and they say iron sharpens iron. And universities are at all the games and we are playing on university fields for the most part. It is great exposure for themselves and they are representing a great program in Niagara.”
Duguay is looking forward to the varsity season.
“It’s looking really good. We have a lot of guys who came out and we are represented by 98 per cent of the schools. We have huge numbers with 87 players trying out.”
Last year, there were 70 athletes at tryouts.
“It would be nice if we could have more offensive linemen so we could have two teams but we just don’t get the bigs any more. Most of them are looking after their health.”
Last season, the Varsity Spears lost five offensive linemen to injury in their first game of the season and in their last game, they had a linebacker and a defensive lineman suiting up on the offensive line.
Duguay is confident his team will have a strong season.
“It is going to be up to these guys now with the time and effort that they want to put into it. That will be the biggest thing. We have a lot of talent and they have to come out and play.”
Martin is also excited about the season for the JV Spears.
“We have a good bunch coming up, we have some good returnees and some kids who had very good high school seasons and have gotten better,” he said. “We have more kids interested in coming out for our program, probably due to the success we had last year and the realization that we have an excellent coaching staff.”
More than 80 players have come out for training camp, including representatives from pretty much every high school in Niagara.
“Through word-of-mouth, kids have heard that we run a good program and they want to come out and be a part of it.”
Those numbers should translate to success on the field.
“There’s a lot of competition put into our practices because we play in the No. 1 division in the province against the best programs in the Western Conference. They are playing against really good competition, guys who have played for Team Ontario. They have to be ready and prepared.”
