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St. Mary’s coach Dave Brown, left, with assistant Pancho Bingham next to him, will have several key contributors on his basketball team absent from practice this week as the Spartan football team prepares for the Division 3A Super Bowl.
By STEVE KRAUSE
Even though the winter sports season officially began today with tryouts, quite a few of the players won’t be there today.
It’s not for anything bad. It’s because they’re in high school Super Bowls, and football supersedes winter sports — at least for this week.
The winter coaches affected all agree it’s a good problem to have. But they still have to cope with the situation, and so so in their own ways.
Perhaps the tightest of tightropes will be walked by Marblehead’s Mike Giardi, who is an assistant coach for the football team and the school’s head basketball coach.
Luckily for Giardi, logistics won’t be a problem. The gym is set up in three time slots, beginning at 3, 5 and 7 p.m. The track team generally takes the afternoon, while girls’ and boys’ basketball switch off. For this week anyway, Giardi and the boys’ basketball team will take the late shift to accommodate him as he straddles the line between two sports. The Magicians’ football team will play Saturday in the Division 2A Super Bowl against Falmouth.
“Obviously,” he said, “we’re not going to ask the football players who also play basketball to go to both practices, but I’ll be there for both.”
Still, he said, the situation has its inherent drawbacks.
“I remember when I played, I played football my senior year, and went right into basketball. We had the privilege of winning a state championship my senior basketball season, and I went right from that game to baseball the following Monday. And we went to the Eastern Mass. finals in baseball.
“I think by the end, you started to get a little worn down,” he said. “It seemed like it was a long year.”
Both Giardi and St. Mary’s basketball coach Dave Brown agree that the juxtaposition of the two sports has its advantages too.
“They’ve been competing all fall, and they’re bringing that winning attitude to the court,” said Brown. “They already have that chip on their shoulders. They want to win. So it’s good in that way.”
Brown, whose team is defending Division 4 state champion, has some major players missing practice this week.
“I’d say four of my top eight players will be playing in the Super Bowl,” said Brown. That includes ninth-grader Matt Cross of Beverly, who is a tight end for the team that will play for the Division 3A title Saturday at Gillette Stadium against East Bridgewater. In last year’s title game, Cross was a force in the middle in the Spartans’ 61-52 win over Maynard. Also on the football team are Marlon Scott, Onias Mirbel, George Freeman and Connor Donahue.
“We’ll probably be missing about 20 kids from tryouts (today),” Brown said. “But I’m certainly not going to cry over the fact that it’s because the football team is in the Super Bowl. You want that. It’s great for school spirit.”
Giardi will use the time wisely.
“It’ll give us time to evaluate kids we wouldn’t normally get a good look at,” he said. “Also, our first league game isn’t until Dec. 16, so I think there’s plenty of time. We’re not going to be in any jamborees.”
Still, Giardi has several key players on his team who are equally vital to the football squad’s success. Among them are quarterback Drew Gally, captain Bo Millett, Derek Marino, Justin Faia, Andy Clough, Harry Craig, Shamus Keaney and co-captain David Campbell, who spent much of the football season on the sidelines with an injury.
As a three-sport athlete himself, Giardi knows that you can’t ask kids to play cautious.
“That’s when you tend to get hurt,” he said. “All you can do is ask them to go out and play hard, whatever it is. I want my players to be multi-sport athletes, because it’s important to compete.”
There’s more urgency with Brown. The Spartans will be in a jamboree Dec. 4 in Burlington where teams play two halves of basketball against two different teams, and then their first regular-season game is Friday, Dec. 9 against Division 2 state champion New Mission.
“It leaves you with a question of what to do,” he said. “Do you put things in while your kids are out, and then do it all over again?”
He went through this in 2006, when coaching Winthrop, when the Vikings won a Super Bowl championship.
“We started out 0-5,” he said. “Emotionally, after the Super Bowl win, the kids weren’t into it yet. It eventually was OK, but it took a while.
“The thing will probably happen again,” he said. “But you just hang on until after the holidays and you generally round into shape.”
As for Giardi, “you have to have a solid system,” he said. “Coach (Jim) Rudloff (football) has one, with his assistants, and we do too. You rely on them and trust them, and you’ll be fine.”
One coach who won’t have to worry this season is St. Mary’s hockey coach Mark Lee.
“It’s happened in the past,” he said. “But I don’t have any football players this year. And I’m happy about that.”