By Daniel Torres / Interim Sports Editor
HOPING TO SUCCEED (Martin Iniguez Jr. / Interim Photo Editor)
By Daniel Torres / Interim Sports Editor
The Riverside City College football team is set to once again take on another season of the game that treated them so horribly a year ago.
Coming off a 3-7 season, this year’s Tigers choose to ignore the past and instead look to have a brighter more successful 2009.
Having to reflect on last season, head coach Bill Brown simply said, “Disappointing.”
Now, he only discusses last season with his team as a reference to learn.
When asked what the team has learned from all of this, Brown said “We’ll see how much we’ve learned by how well we do this year.”
Brown said the team’s goal this year is an improvement record wise.
“We’ve upgraded our talent level this year,” he said. “We have a lot of division 1 talent on this team and we feel confident going into the season.”
In comparing last season to this year’s, Brown said there was no comparison.
“I spoke to the leadership group and told them last year didn’t matter,” he said. “We’re a better team this year. It would be like comparing apples to oranges. The only thing the same about last year is our uniforms.”
Brown went on to say that RCC is this year’s team to beat, just that no one knows this yet.
With a much different team this year and the preseason polls only looking at last year’s results, no one’s the wiser as to what RCC has up its sleeves.
With just a few weeks until game day, quarterback Nathan Lomonica reflects on last season and uses it as motivation for this year.
“Coming off last season its kind of easy being motivated,” said Lomonica. “We just don’t want to end up like that again.”
Safety James Calhoun goes on to add that the team talks before practices and will talk before games to make sure everyone is on the same page.
Being that there are a lot of freshmen on this year’s squad, Calhoun and Lomonica want to make sure the freshmen don’t get put down this year.
Lomonica said it best, “We want to bring them right on up with us.”
Brown’s advice to the freshmen is just to be patient and to always be learning.
The biggest thing he discusses with the leadership group is leading by example because the freshmen are going to be looking at their every move.
The team this year appears to be getting along really well. Brown would describe the locker room chemistry as tremendous saying that all of his players are competitive, but in a good nature.
He also notices that everyone is helping each other improve, not just certain players looking after themselves.
Lomonica and Calhoun both agree that their goals this year revolve around the team’s improvement.
“If James has five interceptions in a game, and I have eight touchdowns and we don’t win, it’s not going to matter,” Lomonica said. “It’s the team playing together that’s going to get us those wins.”
The Tigers had some downright bad games last season, like the 22 point loss against Chaffey College or the 50 point blowout against Mt. San Antonio College, but Brown doesn’t want any revenge against them.
“Every year is a new year and I’m not even thinking about the past anymore,” he said.
Lomonica and Calhoun have a somewhat different mindset though.
They both have their targets set on El Camino College, who barely escaped with a three point win last year on our home field.
Last season RCC sent around 15 players to four year schools with football scholarships.
When asked how many players he thinks can win a scholarship this year Brown said, “They’ve got to play well and they have to get good grades, there is a lot of things that go into them getting a scholarship or not.”
Talent wise though, he says his players are capable of winning scholarships.
Brown considers his coaching style to be a lot like his parenting style.
He says he cares about all his players but he won’t baby them one bit.
“I’ll push them when they need to be pushed and I’ll hug them when they need to be hugged,” Brown said.
Brown doesn’t take all the credit though. The team is also there to get on each others backs.
“I don’t even have to say anything when they make a mistake; they’re already on each other about those things,” he said.
The competition amongst them is already very high.
Lomonica and Calhoun know the season opener is getting close, but for them, this year’s season started when the last one ended.
The main goal for this team right now is focus, meaning focus on every play and on every game and to not lose that focus for anything or for anyone.
COMPLETING THE TEAM (Martin Iniguez Jr. / Interim Photo Editor)
HEAD TO HEAD (Martin Iniguez Jr. / Interim Photo Editor)
