By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
Every high school football team sets goals before the season starts. But not all of those goals are the same.
There’s always a district championship to shoot for. Maybe for a few, there might be dreams of a state championship.
Booker T. Washington coach Tony Reliford is setting a goal for his team this year, but not the type you might normally expect.
“My first goal is to make sure all these seniors graduate,” the fifth-year coach said. “Those guys have been there for four years and I feel like we owe that to them. I can’t say it’s all about wins and losses because we have struggled the last few years.”
The Lions are coming off a 4-5 year in 2021, winning the opening two games but then losing five of the next six. However, BTW ended it in style with a 38-16 win over Woodlawn.
But this year brings a number of challenges for the Milam Street school. The first is the schedule; with the new-look District 1-4A alignment, there aren’t a whole lot of breaks.
Before that, the Lions will open with home games against Wossman and Bolton before the annual highlight game against Green Oaks in the Soul Bowl.
Then, the District 1-4A gauntlet begins.
“We won four games last year and we’d like to improve on that but with this new (district configuration) it’s going to be tough,” Reliford said. “But we are going to do our best to honor these seniors.”
BTW graduated 18 seniors and has only three returning starters on offense and four on defense. One of the top returning offensive starters is wide receiver Darayvion Eason, but he will miss the opening game of the season with a knee injury.
Reliford is looking for answers on offense, and asked who will make his team go, said “we haven’t found that person yet.”
He’s hoping he has found the answer for now and in the future in freshman Damion O’Neal.
“We don’t want him to try to do too much,” Reliford said. “We want to make him comfortable, but I told him one day to stay with it. He’s going to be a superstar one day. He’s going to need to take it a little bit at a time but he’s going to be special.”
But it will take help from the offensive line. “In order for us to be successful our offensive line is going to have to hold up,” Reliford said. “We only have one starter back but if we can get those guys to gel, we can be competitive and hopefully win a few games.”
Reliford said the defense will be where the Lions make their mark. “That will be our staple,” he said. “We will move people around and get after some people.”
The secondary should be a strength with sophomore middle linebacker Cedric Dennis, free safety Tromarea Tillman, senior cornerback Ladaveon Nelson, senior strong safety Taboyous Anderson and senior CB Kendrick Pratt.
“Hopefully we can get after them up front and hold them on the back end,” he said. “That’s where our leadership is.”
Contact J.J. at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com
Photo by JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports