Dragons’ Diaper Dandies the Story of Spring Football

The Pickens High School Dragons’ spring football season came to close with the annual spring scrimmage. The fall football season will feature a team of youngsters as the Dragons lost 14 seniors off of the 2010 team. Only six seniors will be on the 2011 team. Head football coach Steve Sewell spoke about the youth on his depth chart.“We’ve got some young kids that’s going to have to play early this year for us,” Sewell said. “We don’t have a lot of seniors and we’re going to be primarily a sophomore and junior football team.”

Pickens will be green in uniform as well as experience on offense. Graduating senior quarterback, Jordan Shaw, may have left the biggest shoes to fill, with two sophomores competing for vacant spot. The Dragons will also have two sophomores competing for the starting tailback spot as well. There will be some experience on the offensive line with two players returning, Brian Chastain and Tatum Dean.

Zack McCoy returns as the starter at outside linebacker. He will be anchoring a defense that has only two returning starters.

Sewell acknowledged that the lack of veterans will be tough hurdle; however, he feels that if the young players can develop physical and mental maturity the Dragons will be able to compete.

“It depends on how much these kids mature over the summer and how much stronger they can get in the weight room and if they make a comment to the summer workouts. If they do that I think we can be competitive,” Sewell said.

Sewell said that the young players will have to gain trial by fire in addition to the work they put into the summer conditioning.

Sewell separates the younger guys from the older veterans during practice in order to “keep them all involved.” With the younger players often times needing more in depth attention, this practice allows the coaching staff to develop the young talent as well as cultivate the skills in veterans necessary for game preparation.