Ask any young Vero Beach football player and they’ll tell you that they can’t wait to play varsity football for the Vero Beach High School team. The reality is that most players must play on the Vero Beach junior varsity team before they get a chance to play a Friday night game in front of thousands of cheering Fighting Indians fans at the Citrus Bowl.
On occasion a player from the junior varsity team may be called up to play on the varsity team due to an injured varsity player or because the junior varsity player has exhibited the talent needed at the varsity level. Vero Beach Junior Varsity football coach Bryan Debula says when he loses one of his best players to the varsity team he knows that he has done a good job. “We are trying to grow the program and it makes us feel proud when they move one of our players up to varsity,” Debula said. “We are so fortunate here at Vero that we have several players to fill in the gaps and get some game experience.”
In some cases younger players that made the varsity roster after the summer workouts don’t see a lot of playing time. Vero Beach receiver Mike Smith made the varsity roster as a sophomore but didn’t get to play much in the first two varsity games. “I was on varsity for the beginning of the season but Coach Jankowski felt he needed to bring me down to the junior varsity so I could get some more experience,” Smith said. “The move made sense to me because I am just a tenth grader and I have plenty of time to develop my game. On JV I get more playing time and I’m looked at as a leader.”
Many schools do not have the financial support or enough players to field a freshman, junior varsity and varsity football program. Vero Beach Varsity Head Coach Lenny Jankowski says having the luxury of all three teams pays huge dividends.
“Coach Debula and his staff do an unbelievable job, not just during the football season but during the offseason, maintaining relationships with our kids over the summer,” Jankowski said. “We are able to move guys up and down levels of play whether it’s freshman, JV, or Varsity. Everybody is speaking the same language and running the same plays and we have a lot of interchangeable parts. We have a lot of good players on the junior varsity team that have varsity talent but we have the philosophy that we want those guys to get lots of game reps and I think that pays off in the long run.”
