Jake Gilbert - The Wabash College football team is committed to achieving each of our five program goals (Academic Excellence, Win, Fun, Family, and Impact Men) in every area of our program. You can witness the fulfillment of many of these goals on Monday nights during our Red Squad games. 

For starters, our Red Squad maintains the family atmosphere that penetrates every part of our team. Our players truly care about each other and play with the tenacity and passion that is generated from our close relationships as teammates. 

Our Red Squad team is currently undefeated and has a record of 18 wins, 4 losses and 1 tie since 2003. We take winning serious on all levels and our Monday night games closely resemble our Saturday contests. We do everything first class and our fans are very supportive, at home and on the road. Every time we take the field, we compete all out to represent the proud tradition of our football program and the college itself, because Wabash Always Fights!!! 

Lastly, our Red Squad has a blast! We make it our top priority to see that everyone gets to play in every game as a reward for a week’s worth of hard work at practice. We all enjoy the camaraderie that develops during Mondays throughout the season. When we don’t have games, the Red Squad scrimmages each other in a wide variety of contests that allow us to have a great time competing. 

The Red Squad at Wabash is an enormous success, in large part due to our foundation of family and commitment. Come see us on a Monday to witness the current and future stars of Wabash Football.

Posted by Brent Harris at 09:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chris Creighton - On behalf of the football team, I want to thank all of you who came out
and supported us on Saturday. When we realized our home game against Wittenberg fell on Fall Break we were very disappointed. Fall Break or not, Wabash Always Fights and our support was nothing short of awesome. The stadium was full and the stadium was loud. It was yet another example of why Wabash is so special. 

I also want to thank Nate Powell and the team for painting the endzones, Cal Black and his wife for decorating the stadium, Jim Amidon and staff for allowing the game to be televised and Tom Runge for putting together the Celebration of Wabash Football following the game. It was a great day and a fantastic evening.

Oh yeah, and it was Fall Break!

Posted by Brent Harris at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Aaron Selby - As each Saturday approaches this fall I learn more and more about a sport that I have spent the better part of my life playing. I have been playing football since I was just a small child. I can remember getting my first set of pads for my birthday. I remember the feeling of my first big hit and the excitement that followed. I remember the crisp fall evenings playing under the lights. I remember the wins and I remember the losses. The memories that I have of football are the still shots of my life.

I was born to play football and football is my life. For the better part of 13 years, over half of my life, I have been involved in organized football. It all started in elementary school with flag football and now I am an assistant football coach at my college alma mater. As a player at Wabash College I experienced so many things it is hard to describe all of them. As someone who has been through the program as a player I can tell you first hand what family is about because I experienced it firsthand. I remember being a freshmen playing on a defense full of upperclassmen and seeing personally the support and encouragement that they gave to each other and even to me. A team takes on a whole new persona when you have guys being unselfish because they want to see their brothers experience success and that is exactly what the Wabash Football Family is and will always be.

The family aspect continues to encompass not only the players, but also the coaches too. The relationships that are built between a player and a coach can be tricky. There is a fine line between being a buddy and being a coach. I have found that it is essential to demand a player to be at his best even if you have to get on him to work a little harder or to quit making the same mistakes, but there is another key to it as well. There has to be reinforcement. It is imperative to encourage and reaffirm otherwise the relationship will never be as fruitful as it could be. The relationships that I had with the coaches while I was a player would be consistent with what is mentioned above. The relationships that I had with the coaching staff have grown even more now since becoming a coach. I see the amount of energy, dedication, and sacrifice that these coaches put into the season and their players. I have seen it and I have done just that.

As a player here we won a lot of games. The class of 2006 was 36-9 in the four years that I was here. We experienced two undefeated regular seasons and won three Monon Bell games. However, you don’t just win on Saturday’s. It starts on Monday by putting the time in the film room and on the practice field and doing things the right way. One philosophy that the coaching staff at Wabash has is, “winning is a by product of doing things right” and that is exactly what we did and continue to do.

As a player you put in a lot of time getting prepared for Saturday, but as a coach you spend even more time getting not only yourself ready but also getting your players ready. As a player there is nothing sweeter than when the clock reads all zeros at the end of a game and you have won. When you know that you have laid every single last ounce of energy you had on the field I can argue that there are few things better in life. It is just as satisfying as a coach to get a win and know that your players were prepared for everything they saw from the opposing team. As Coach Creighton says, “It’s fun to win” and I don’t think anyone involved with Wabash Football would argue with him.

There are many things that do not change from being a player to coaching. For example, the subject matter and principles are the same. However, one of the biggest variances from playing to coaching happens on Saturdays. Saturday afternoon as a player is the climax of the week, which is the same for a coach. The difference is that on Saturdays as a player you are able to use everything you have worked for that week and all the lifting and running that you did in the off-season to defeat your opponents. As a coach you don’t use your physical abilities to beat an opponent you have to outsmart them. You do this by devising a game plan early in the week. Teaching it to your players and drilling them on things they might see during the game. Then on game day figuring out the opposing team’s tendencies and understanding where to attack and how you are being attacked and countering appropriately. As a player, when you know that you are stronger, smarter and in better shape than your opponent in a game then you know you are the better player. As a coach, when you put together a game plan and execute it to perfection then you know on that day you were the better coach.

It was a privilege to play for Wabash College and it is an even bigger privilege to coach here. As many of the things that are different from playing to coaching there is one thing that always stays the same here and that is the support that the college and the community gives this football team. Thank you for your support.

Wabash Always Fights!

Posted by Brent Harris at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Erik Shaver — When Coach Creighton talks about Wabash Football family, he is talking about the bonds that each and every player has created with blood, sweat, and pain shared in the off-season and on the practice field. While we are all brothers on the team, no bond is stronger than the one shared by the men in the trenches, the offensive line.

To understand how powerful a link is felt between guys from Indianapolis, Evansville, San Francisco, Iowa, Crawfordsville, and elsewhere, you need only to read some of the stories that we have shared.

We have numerous comedians and a few klutzes who always make sure that the entire line has a smile on their faces. When Coach Gilbert hosted an o-line get-together at his home and pool, his two boys and lovely wife met us with gallons of ice cream, hot brownies, cookie dough, and numerous other treats that make fat kids sing.

While the rest of the line was downing the sugary goodness, Tony Neymeiyer strutted up to the diving board, flexed like his idol Hulk Hogan, and ripped off his suit to reveal a Speedo. Needless to say, the entire yard erupted in laughter.†

A few weeks later, Skip Tokar invited all of us down to his home in Zionsville to do two things: eat and watch Colts football. The jokes kept coming, the laughter never stopped, and a few cows and pigs were sacrificed for a good cause. Runs to Dairylicous are common and the fabled “Bumblebee” have become a part of our Thursday war cry.

Just last week, the o-line decided to have a meal together at Old Town Buffet, a popular restaurant in Crawfordsville. When twenty, six-foot plus, 280-pound linemen squeezed though the doors, the owners went quite before sprinting to the kitchen to put a rush on more food. Together, the o-line must have collectively downed $300 of rice, ice cream, pork, crab, and chicken. The tab for our meal was $8 per man. Trust me, when the o-line puts its collective mind toward consuming massive amounts of food, people are going to lose money. Those poor folks did.

We have a vast cast of characters on the o-line. We have a center who was recognized as the best male choir and theater student when he was in high school. We have three future teachers and a future physical therapist on the line. We have a tackle that wants to become an archeologist. We have intelligent brothers who are going to make a name for themselves in the future.

The simple fact is that if we were to choose a single person to spend the night in a foxhole with, we would immediately choose the entire line. When practice ends and the team breaks for the night, we end with one word: family.

However, the o-line already knows that we are family. We know that on Saturday it is all going to come down to one common factor: us. We are the reason; the o-line is the reason. That is why we are so close. We know that if we want to win, we need to trust one another without a second thought. We are family. We are the offensive line.

Erik Shaver is a junior offensive lineman from Indianapolis, IN.

Posted by Jim Amidon at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)