Spencer not interested in looking back at last season

It’s the beginning of a late-summer practice, the first week of full contact in Georgia, and the Spencer football players are as geared up as they’ve ever been.

Players and coaches huddle around two pads that form a lane between which players will go head-to-head in the famed Oklahoma Drill. It’s about competition, it’s about technique, but more than anything it’s just about knocking the opposite player on his backside.

The energy is infectious as pair after pair go against each other. Coaches whoop it up with the victors, and players joke with others who get the worst of it. At the end of the drill, as coach Pierre Coffey walks away to move on to the next activity, a voice in the center of the crowd calls out another player.

Coffey stops in his tracks.

“Well, let’s do it then,” he said, players cheering again.

It’s an entirely different atmosphere than the one that used to inhabit the southern tip of Victory Drive, where a losing season for the Greenwave was a virtual guarantee each year.

Gone is the weight of inevitability, the one that says Spencer’s season ends the first weekend of November. After an 8-4 season last year, the program’s first winning season since 1977, there is a new feeling:

One of hope, excitement and pride.

“People are excited,” said senior Khalil Thomas, who returns at quarterback after a strong junior campaign in 2015. “People want to be a part of this program now.”

“They love their color, they love their mascot, they love their school,” Coffey added. “There’s a complete buy-in, and that’s what it’s all about.”

Spencer earned eight straight wins last season, including a win over the defending state runners-up in the first round of the state playoffs, before falling short against Dawson County in the second round.

But that was last year, a point Coffey said he is constantly making to his players as they prepare for the new season. His expectations now are that his team doesn’t get caught up in the success of a season ago and instead continues to build something even better than before.

“As an educator, I just believe in holding kids to a standard,” Coffey said. “I think the higher the standard, the more the achievement. I’m not going to set a standard of, oh, let’s do what we did last year. I want to exceed what we did last year.”

It’s no higher a standard than the players have set for themselves. The seniors, like Thomas and heralded offensive lineman Ye’Majesty Sanders, want to build an even greater legacy than last year’s graduating class did.

“We’re just trying to carry on what we started last year,” Sanders said. “We don’t want to start losing again. We’re trying to do the same thing as last year, but carry it further.”

With higher expectations, though, comes a little more pressure. For their part, the players aren’t feeling it too much. Sanders said the team is staying humble, taking things one step at a time over the course of summer and preseason practice.

Coffey said he and his coaches try to keep the kids grounded, despite the increased attention on the team on social media and in the news.

“We know what people are saying, but we try to stay to ourselves,” Sanders said. “We’re trying to stay humble and take care of business.”

Taking care of business, of course, includes a handful of steps for a growing program like Spencer’s.

Coffey stressed the first and biggest piece to their foundation was increasing the pride and the desire to be a part of the football program. With that in place, the team is focused on building, developing players and making sure that graduation losses don’t derail progress.

“I quickly remind those kids: (Last year) was last year,” Coffey said. “Daymeonta White and Dashae Hubbard and Chris Baker, those guys are all gone. These guys have to establish those same roles.”

The good thing is that there are already plenty of experienced pieces in place, as well. And, Coffey stressed repeatedly, they are not getting ahead of themselves.

“Each week, we set a goal and we try to achieve that goal,” he said. “That’s how you ultimately achieve your big goals.”

This story was originally published August 21, 2016 at 12:40 PM with the headline "Spencer not interested in looking back at last season."