Beating the Odds: Interview with Eastern Tech's head football coach for school newspaper unedited

Beating the Odds: Interview with the Coach

 

 

Baltimore, (Tech Times/ Maverick Express) October 18^th, 2008---- This week I spoke with the head football coach at Eastern Tech Marc Mesaros about the upcoming football season next school year as well as this year’s program that beat the odds and made it all the way to the state championships. Keep in mind that the answers are all paraphrased and not word for word or verbatim (as a member of the ET staff loves to say).

 

J.K.: What are the future plans for the football team?

Coach: What do you mean?

J.K.: Where do you guys see yourselves going next season?

Coach: Well we have a tough schedule coming up next season; we’re playing Milford Mill, Kenwood, Hereford, and Patuxent, a tough team from southern Maryland, we have that going as well as the fact that we are losing 12 starters this year. Although, what I can say about Eastern Tech kids is that they never give up, we lost 12 starters last season and nobody thought we would make it this far so we’ll see how it goes next season.

J.K.: Why do you believe your team was able to go to 2 straight state championships?

Coach: Work ethic, we’ve outworked a lot of teams and a lot of people.

J.K.: I agree, the thing that sticks out to me is dedication.

Coach: Well, your right and you can’t play in this program without that (dedication).

J.K.: What do you believe was the biggest factor in your loss to River Hill?

Coach: I think River Hill was on a mission, they had a size advantage over us even though Darian Conners ran for 88 yds. And you also have to keep in mind that they had 4 Division 1 players in the backfield and that more college kids are coming through over there, people like Mike Campanaro, their starting QB, he’s headed to Wake Forest so I think those were some big factors in the loss.

J.K.: Do you ever see the day here at E.T. where we have Division 1 recruiters coming here to recruit players?

Coach: Well, it’s already happening, of course I don’t want to get into the specifics but when a team starts winning ball games people wonder how they are able to win so much which will cause more people to come and see what’s going on here at Eastern.

J.K.: What was it like coaching on the same field, the Baltimore Ravens play on?

Coach: It was great and I had a pretty good time.

J.K.: I thought you hate the Ravens?

Coach: Let’s put it this way the Ravens will always be the Browns to me, I like what Rex Ryan is doing with his defense but I’ll always love my Black and Gold.

(Laughs from me thinking of how the Steelers will bust out of the playoffs in the second round, anyway LOL)

J.K.: OK, What is your viewpoint on the Maryland high school football scene?

Coach: I believe it’s underrated, I mean yeah some teams may not be as strong as say teams in Florida, Texas, Ohio or California but I think that there are a lot of good squads around here. I’m coaching in a high school football all-star game, practicing at the University of Maryland College Park and in my opinion the best kids here would be the best kids anywhere.

J.K.: How has the exposure of high school football in this area via Digital Sports, Comcast Cable affected your recruiting? (In public schools they don’t recruit for players like private high schools or colleges, philosophies of many public schools is that if you can get in academic wise you have what it takes athletic wise)

Coach: A lot of kids have shown interest in playing for Eastern which is great but it’s about education first, you don’t get into Eastern just because you’re a good football player, you have to be good on the academic side of things as well. The exposure has also helped increase our profile which is always good.

J.K.: Finally, how do you believe a national high school football championship should be decided? The way it is now via website rankings/mythical championship (i.e. Rivals.com, Scout.com, ESPN.com etc.) or a national playoff?

Coach: Look, with a national playoff  it ruins the mystic, you would have to add another say 2 weeks onto the season, on top of that you have 2-3 hours of practice each day, travel schedules are out of whack, when do you ever have time to be a kid? How would you decide which state champions go and which stay, would you have another in-state playoff with say River Hill and Dunbar, which would mean more added on weeks, and if you don’t do that and you decide to just send some random team wouldn’t still be mythical, it would be just like the BCS system where there are some questions left unanswered. Too many agendas on the table for that kind of situation, you know what I mean?

J.K.: Yeah, I agree, with a playoff there would be even more of a mess than the BCS, anyways coach thanks for the interview, I really appreciate it.

Coach: You’re welcome anytime Jessie.

 

Postscript:

 

So there you have it, seems like the Eastern Tech football program is on the right track, they plan on beating the odds and believe that they can beat anybody any given FRIDAY! Coach kind of caught me off guard with the Steelers trash-talking, I mean the Steelers are probably the most vulnerable team in the NFL, if you can’t stop them in the 4^th quarter (which both the Ravens and Cowboys over the past two weeks have failed to do) then you will beat them. Anyways, thanks to Mr. Mesaros for the interview. GO MAVS! GO RAVENS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jessie Karangu