The 2007 Streaks have a lot of work to do

By John Ring

The Zephyr, Galesburg

The 2007 Silver Streak football team opened up practices last week.

Their roster isn’t that big. They don’t have a lot of size. And they don’t have their starting quarterback from last year.

So what did Coach Wes Olson tell his team the first day of practice?

Was it a speech modeled after one that George Patton or Bobby Knight would give?

Would it talk about how the Streaks faded down the stretch last season?

Or would it be a motivational speech intended to spark a fire that would take them into the season?

It turned out to be none of the above.

“We talked about the Western Big 6,” replied the Streaks coach. “We talked about how we have the smallest enrollment of any public school in the conference. We talked about how other teams like Moline would be physically bigger than us. We talked about how teams like Rock island may be quicker. But I told them that those are things out of our control. We can’t do anything about that.”

“But I also told them that what we can control is how hard we work. We can be the hardest working team in the Western Big 6. We have to outwork these other teams to be successful. There’s other things for sure— taking care of the football, flying to the ball on defense, playing as a team— but we need to work hard and these guys are doing just that.”

Olson is absolutely right. Watch a Streaks practice and three things hit you immediately.

The roster won’t be real big.

The Streaks are one of the smallest teams physically in years.

They have a lot of athletes.

They also won’t have senior Kyle Hunter, a smooth lefthanded quarterback who won the starting job midway into the 2006 season.

“Kyle let us know early enough to where we can prepare for the season with another quarterback,” said Olson. “I spoke to Kyle and his family and I understand where he’s coming from.”

Many had speculated that Hunter may not play this year in order to concentrate more fully on his baseball career; he’s been deemed one of the best lefthanded pitching prospects in the area. And he has been the Streaks ace for Coach Arnie Gonzalez since he was a sophomore.

Olson said that the competition for the starting position at quarterback will come down to juniors Shea Sibley and Austin Shearer. Sibley didn’t take as many snaps as Shearer last year but is more athletic and faster. Shearer quarterbacked the freshman team to an undefeated season two years ago.

“Both of them are working hard,” said senior co-captain Zack Boehme., a running back “Both of them are establishing their presence in the huddle.”

“We have some good athletes on this team,” said Olson. “Athletes that are multiple sport players. They’ve already proved themselves to be pretty hard workers. Last year, we were a senior dominated team but we return quite a few guys.”

One of the keys for the Streaks will be how fast the junior class adapts to football at the varsity level. The two hardest things are the physical part of the game and the speed of the varsity game. “That’s a fair assumption,” said Olson, “especially about the physical part of it. That’s going to determine a lot about our team.”

Olson is relaxed going into the season. It helps that he has last year under his belt. The team knows him, he knows the players and there’s clearly a comfort level in their interaction.

The Streaks coach is looking forward to the first game of the season.

“Dunlap made the playoffs last year after their 0 for whatever start last year,” said Olson. “They’re well coached and they come from a growing community. It’s going to be a tough game on the road .”

“Every good team makes the playoffs,” said Boehme. “We want to be one of those good teams.”

Losing Hunter hurts; he came off the bench and nearly rallied Galesburg to a win over East Moline late in the season with the Streaks’ playoff hopes on the line.

The good news is that Olson and the Streaks have some time. Not a ton of time but time enough to recover and establish a quarterback and get on to business.

And for the Silver Streaks, that business begins in Dunlap next week.

8/16/07