Soaring high again?
Absolutely.
But high scoring right now?
Not yet.
āA work in progress,ā Forest City Thunderbirds assistant head coach Chad Asselstine said after the Ontario Football Conference varsity teamās season-opening 4-1 victory over the Chatham Cougars last weekend.
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āWe lost a playoff game last year 1-0. I was joking with (offensive co-ordinator) Matt Snyder, saying, āyouāre killing me here. Youāve got to get us some points to work with.ā
āBut we were in the red zone four times and picked off twice. Weāre moving the ball. The offence is there. You can see it. We just need to have that finish.ā
Four years ago, it looked like the Thunderbirds might be a finished franchise. Another league went awry. Head coach John Darnell parked the T-birds in the garage for a summer.
He made adjustments, changed circuits and went with a more youthful model.
Now, in his 40th season coaching football, Darnell has a busy pigskin production line again. Thereās four teams in the OFCās various teen-age brackets ā varsity, junior varsity, bantam and pee wee. On June 12, the T-birds will hold another all-day football quadruple header at Westminster Secondary School.
āItās my way of still teaching,ā Darnell said. āWeāll have two teams practice one night, then two more the next. Every night, thereās something going.ā
Asselstine, the former Western Mustang, was part of that resurgence.
A strong coaching crew is laced with university experience.
āItās such a close-knit organization,ā Asselstine said. āThereās been different leagues and thereās four teams now. But back when there was just the junior varsity team, to show the kind of loyalty some of these other guys had, instead of playing somewhere else, theyād show up every week and cheer us on.
āEveryone works hard. We just want to go out on that field and represent London the best we can. Thatās what weāre looking for here.ā
In the fractured world of London football, Forest City is a great example of being able to work together and co-exist.
To get into the OFC, Darnell needed the local junior team ā the Beefeaters ā to approve their inclusion. They managed to do it while maintaining their separate identities.
āWe have our own ways of doing things,ā T-birds GM Bill Tsioros said. āWe wanted to be in a league that was competitive and we wanted to field strong teams, but we didnāt want to create any illusions. We had a lot of players try out but we didnāt keep everyone. Someone asked why did you only take 54 players ā thereās no league rule about it. But thatās the number we can fit on a bus.
āWe donāt want to take anyoneās money and have them stand on the sidelines. One thing Iāll say about Johnās teams, if heās up big, heās going to empty the bench and if heās being blown out, he makes sure the last guy plays.
āNot everyone does it that way.ā
There are all kinds of different rumours what summer football will look like next year after a more streamlined approach is ushered in. Will the Ontario Varsity Football League, which includes the London Falcons, end up co-existing apart from the OFC or morph into another massive league?
Right now, the Thunderbirdsā varsity team has bigger fish to fry, facing the Sarnia Sturgeon in Chatham-Kent on Sunday.
And Snyder? Donāt worry about that offence. He comes from serious point-scoring stock.
His brother Steve, an ex-Thunderbird and Canadian university standout with St. Francis Xavier last fall, is now lighting it up overseas with the Osnabruck Tigers in the German Football League.
Itās the ultimate football lesson.
Keep pushing forward, commit to the journey and who knows where youāll end up?
Photo: Forest City Thunderbirds’ Taylor Boomsma, left, Chris Tsioros and Jake Van Horik are part of a defence that held the Chatham Cougars to one point in their season opener last weekend. (CRAIG GLOVER, The London Free Press)
FOOTBALL: London team won opener but scored only four points after tossing interceptions deep in enemy territory
By RYAN PYETTE, The London Free Press
Last Updated: June 4, 2010 8:19am
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