The news from Boothbay Region High School this week that the Seahawk football team, lacking several experienced players, was going to play a club schedule instead of a varsity one, was a bit shocking at first. But after hearing the reasons why and thinking about what needs to change in order for the school to once again field a varsity squad, I feel the coaches and school administrators made the right decision.

Learning that a sport has diminished in stature is a tough pill to swallow. However, reading the snide comments on our website and on Facebook berating the decision does nothing to help the current situation. If you have Seahawk pride, show it by supporting the players, coaches and school. I think the best thing this community can do this season is to show up at games, give the players and coaches a positive comment and/or a pat on the back, and let them know that you are behind them. Don’t bring the program down, help build it up again.

Yes, it is going to take some work if we want to see varsity football return. This group of freshmen and sophomores will have another year of experience under their belts, but they will need help again. Perhaps we will get lucky and some players will join the program, like former recent standouts Antonio Maulolo and Julian Aponte, who didn’t grow up here but “magically” appeared and helped the recent squads. 

Not having the handful of experienced players return has put the team in a precarious situation. Getting knocked around and possibly getting seriously injured because you don’t know the game all that well and you haven’t physically developed is not something the school or parents wanted. Yes, there will be hitting, tackling and illegal hits this season, but on a smaller scale, which will hopefully protect the players.

Back in 1972, I rejoined the Seahawk varsity football team for my sophomore season. We had a new coach, Bill Topham, from Massachusetts. There were questions in all of our heads. What was he going to be like? Should we play for him? Maybe he’ll be too tough? Had it not been for the experienced juniors and seniors who came out for the team, we probably wouldn’t have had a team. And it came pretty close to being a reality. The first week of practice we had 18 players show up. Coach Topham urged the seniors to recruit more players or we might have to cancel the season, should a bunch of us come down with injuries or become ineligible because of grades. The recruiting helped, as we ended up with about 30 players and finished with a 6-2 record. And because of some scheduling glitch, we were denied the championship although we beat the eventual champion, Dirigo Cougars, in an epic 6-0 battle on what is now Sherman Field — on the day the scoreboard was dedicated to former Seahawk Gordon Tibbetts, who was killed in Vietnam.

Some things that helped that year can be put into place now — a dedicated parents group running the Boosters Club; a student body and town members attending games religiously (win or lose), and players starting to recruit for next year — including this year’s seniors who have Seahawk pride.

Will BRHS ever get back to having close to 300 students so we won’t have to worry about losing football? Definitely not next year, and perhaps not for another decade, but one thing is for sure, there are enough of us with Seahawk pride who will work hard to keep Seahawk football alive.