If I had a high school-age son and possessed the financial means to send him to St. Edward’s, I’d strongly encourage him to do something more boys there should do.
I’d want him to play football.
He’d get fitter. He’d get tougher. He’d also get smarter, learning life lessons on the field that can’t be learned in the classroom – lessons about teamwork and camaraderie, adversity and perseverance, sportsmanship and success.
He’d be a better man for it.
Bill Motta, the football coach at St. Edward’s since 2010, would make sure of that.
“We work hard and we want to be successful on the field, but this program isn’t about developing college football players,” Motta said last week during a spring-practice session. “The program here is about developing character, commitment and accountability.”
That’s not just talk.
I’ve seen Motta at work – spring drills, summer workouts, in-season practices. I’ve watched his teams play. I’ve witnessed his interaction with players.
“Coaching,” he said, “is about relationships.”
And Motta, blessed with the rare ability to make old-school values mean something to young people in today’s anything-goes culture, relates in a special way to his players.
Yet, as has been the case too often during his seven years at the private, seaside school, Motta this year again finds himself with only a small number of students who want to absorb his extensive football knowledge and valuable life lessons.
There are only 15 players on the Pirates’ spring roster, which includes just five from the team that reached the championship game of the independent Sunshine State Athletic Conference last season.
Of the 10 others, five hadn’t played organized football until earlier this month, though four of them have played other high school sports, including two that play lacrosse.
One of the lacrosse players, though, is Michael Villafuerte, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound defenseman who Motta plans to use as his featured running back and as an outside linebacker.
Anthony Chiarenza, who, like Villafuerte, will be a senior next season, is the projected starter at quarterback, but when St. Edward’s travels to Maitland for tonight’s spring jamboree at Orangewood Christian School, he will play football under game-like conditions for the first time since he was an eighth-grader.
Overall, the Pirates’ spring roster has one eighth-grader, two freshmen and four sophomores, so the team will be as young as it is inexperienced – except on the offensive line, where Payton Cleveland and Edward Klinsport will be back as seniors and Grayson Long and Patrick Quaile return as juniors.
“We were top-heavy last season,” Motta said. “We had 18 players, and 12 of them were seniors. We had no ninth-graders.”
In fact, nine of the 12 seniors on last season’s 7-4 squad, which Motta said produced “one of my most fulfilling years here,” had spent four years in the program. Three others were juniors, but only two of them have returned this spring.
Making matters worse: St. Edward’s did not field a middle school team last season because there weren’t enough students who wanted to play. (The program will be resurrected in the fall.)
“This is about the leanest it’s been since I’ve been here,” Motta said, adding that academic exams and end-of-the-school-year functions have forced him to conduct some practices this spring with as few as eight players.
“If you have 80 kids and you’re missing eight, it’s no big deal,” he continued. “When you have only 15 and you’re missing five, it can be a problem.”
But not a new problem.
Expecting St. Edward’s to field teams with rosters large enough to allow Motta to run 11-versus-11 scrimmages in practice is unrealistic, given that the Upper School has an enrollment of only 240 – and fewer than half are boys.
“If we had six players at every grade level, we’d have 24 players, which would be a good number for us,” Motta said. “But that’s about 25 percent of the boys enrolled here.
“How many high schools have 25 percent of their male enrollment playing on the football team?”
And as St. Edward’s Assistant Headmaster Bruce Wachter points out: Boys there also have other fall-season athletic options, such as swimming, golf and cross country.
“It’s our preference that kids get involved in something, and our students do a lot of other things at a competitive level,” said Wachter, head of the Upper School. “We have a lot of multiple-sport athletes. But, sure, football could use a few more guys.”
Motta said the administration is doing its part – promoting the team on campus, providing first-rate facilities and the funding for top-of-the-line equipment, and allowing him and his players to recruit students already enrolled.
He said the school purchased $10,000 worth of new equipment, including state-of-the-art shock bonnets that attach to the exterior of football helmets and help prevent concussions.
“I’m sure there were some people who had doubts,” Motta said, “but the administration has not wavered a bit.”
Though there was some concern about the small turnout in the wake of losing a dozen players to graduation, Wachter said the administration never considered dropping the football program.
“As long as there are kids who want to play and they can be well trained, physically fit and competitively sound, we’ll support it,” Wachter said. “It’s part of who we are, and it’s always been a positive experience for our kids.
“That’s the conundrum for us,” he added. “We have great school spirit here. Our kids like the sport and our boys get plenty of support from the student body. We pack the stands for our games.
“What we need to do is get more of them out of the stands and on the field.”
Make no mistake, though: St. Edward’s is not a school where the football program is going to attract players from the outside.
The cost is high – annual Upper School tuition is in excess of $26,000 – and the academic regimen is demanding. Financial aid is available, based solely on need, but even the best athletes must be students first.
Wachter said about 12 percent of the school’s seniors go on to play sports in college.
“Bill does a fabulous job,” Wachter said. “The boys work hard and they compete, but the emphasis isn’t all about football. It isn’t all about winning games, though we like when that happens. He also spends time with the kids doing community service.”
When it comes to coaching football, Motta is getting help this spring from two former NFL players – both were Vero Beach High School standouts, both earned All-America honors in college – who are making sure the Pirates are doing it right.
Motta’s son, Zeke, and Super Bowl-winning center Bryan Stork are serving as volunteer assistant coaches and sharing their vast football knowledge with the St. Edward’s players.
“They’re out here every day,” Motta said of his son, who played for the Atlanta Falcons, and Stork, who played for the New England Patriots. “They have a lot to offer the kids.”
Although he has opportunities to pursue other coaching positions – at both the high school and college levels, where he’d have enough players for a depth chart – Motta continues to do it the hard way at St. Ed’s, where he has had success despite the limitations imposed by a small student body.
“I’ve had offers,” Motta said. “I could do this in a lot of different places. But I love this community and this school. I respect and admire what the administration is trying to do here. Besides, I’ve made a commitment to these people.”
He knows about commitment, accountability, and especially character. He makes his players fitter, tougher and smarter. He’s also making them better young men. And across the past seven years, he has earned the respect and admiration of our community.
I wish more of our sons played for him.
I wish I had one … so he could.
