Another opening

Looks like there is another L-L Football coaching job open.

Published reports indicate that Jeff Polites is stepping down after 11 years at E-town.

Got to no Jeff whn I briefly worked in E-town. Good guy, solid coach. Wish him well.

Other opening exist at Donegal, Cedar Crest and Conestoga Valley.

For more, check out the website of our sister paper, the Elizabeth Chronicle, through this website and click on Bear Facts, or through Jeff Reinhart's LNP news web page.

Banquet time

Will Columbia have any all-stars in Section 3 of the L-L League? We'll find out tonight.
The annual L-L Football Banquet is tonight at the Timbers in Mount Gretna.

Off-season is keeping up

sports started on Monday, it marked the end of summer for the student-athletes or did it.
To stay competitive in high school sports today, teams have to keep up with the Jones, by participating in team camps, 7-on-7 workouts and weight lifting.
Plus, they have to balance other sports and allow time for their athletes to enjoy their time off.
“I think it has become the nature of the beast,” said Donegal coach Bill Groff.
“Everyone is doing the off-season stuff now. Every sport wants a piece of the kids, so you are trying to find the balance,” Groff said.
“I think the off-season has changed big time,” said L-S coach John Manion.
However at L-S, they don’t go overboard with the off-season workouts.
“We don’t believe in forcing the kids to do things in the off-season,” Manion said.
Over the summer, L-S works out up to 10 hours a week.
“We’ll go to a 7-on-7 here and thee. It’s good work, but until you are in pads you really don’t get anything out of it,” the L-S coach said.
“It hasn’t hurt us so far,” Manion said.
For football players at Columbia, it was a busy off-season. They participated in 7-on-7 drills at Penn State, Manheim, Hempfield and a few others.
“For us it’s not hard because we enjoy football,” said Brandon Felus, a starting lineman.
Assistant coach Dave Mowrer played high school football in the 1980s.
“Back then we didn’t do 7-on-7 because our kids played three different sports. Now, if you don’t focus all year round, then you get lost in the shuffle,” Mowrer said.
ELCO’s Mark Evans wants his players to enjoy the summer.
“”I think the thing we focus on is that they have got to have a summer to be kids,” Evans said.
“We focus on lifting and running. If they get together to throw, it is on their own,” Evans said.
“We as coaches have a tendency to overkill and that’s how you lose kids,” Evans said.
Another program with an active summer was Lancaster Catholic.
Coach Bruce Harbach said his team got together at least 430 times to throw.
“You have to because there is more going on and its needs when you have a wide open offense,” Harbach said.
Still, there’s caution as coaches don’t want to see their players show up hurt.
“You have to do it to keep up with the other teams because its the nature of the game now,” Harbach said.

Media Day

The Lancaster-Lebanon League held its annual Media Day for football Friday at Four Seasons.
I like Media Day for a couple of reasons. One, its a chance to get together with fellow writers and talk shop; two, its a chance to meet and greet the coaches of the league, and three, it saves work later in the season, when you need information about a certain team.
One stop shopping, if you understand what I mean.
I do wish other sports such as basketball and wrestling would host similar events.
Didn’t hear any questions about Brett Favre and we didn’t have a cranky 81-year-old coach not remembering a certain year or player.
It was fun.
So what were the topics?
• A former local high school coach coming out of retirement, returning as an assistant coach at another school and that program’s future.
• Former Cocalico coach Phil Kauffman, now the John Madden of Blue Ridge Cable, trying to find out info on the teams.
• A chance for the players to meet the media and talk about their seasons. Something many of them don’t get a chance to do during the season.
• A chance for all teams to say they have a shot at a section title.
• As I made the rounds of the teams in Section 3, one thing that interested me was the roster numbers ranging from the mid-20s for Pequea Valley to the high 60s for L-S and Lancaster Catholic.
With the exception of Columbia and Pequea Valley, most teams have more than 45 players on their roster. ELCO might be just above 40 as Mark Evans did not list any sophomores on his roster.
Come on coach, don’t take a page from the Joe PA playbook and how am I suppose to get a scouting report on your team!
• Last year was the Year of the Running Back in Section 3. This year, it might be the Year of the Quarterback. Catholic, Northern Lebanon and ELCO have veteran quarterbacks.
• Annville-Cleona after two years on the road, will finally play home games this year, under the lights, including a Thursday night pre-season tilt with Cocalico.
• The Game of the Year will be in week three when Catholic and Central hook up.
• Section Three, with a good mix of big (Class AAA) and small (Class AA and A) schools is the most competitive in the league.
However, with growing programs at Catholic and L-S, the smaller schools might not be able to compete, at least numbers-wise in a few years.
• Learned that Octorara is interested in coming into the league.
Might be a good fit for the Lancaster County teams in Section 3, but not for the Lebanon County schools such as Northern Lebanon.
That could be an overnight trip!
• As for the food, it was just hot dogs, soda and cookies. The kids were hitting the food table pretty good.