Coach Mark Jones

Leechburg football Coach Mark Jones and his team went through the fire last year: low turnout, three key players with high-school-career-ending injuries, the development of a new 9th grade team which pulled players from the Varsity, and a no-win season.

Now the team, in a legendary conference filled with giants, stares at a season where every weekend is very difficult. But Jones, now also Leechburg's new A. D., is hitting the problem head-on, and has something to say about it.

"One word: defense. We have to play defense," the coach pronounces. "We won't win another game in Leechburg till we stop someone on third down."

Coach Jones explains, "Athletically in the conference we play in, throwing deep passes and expecting our kids to outrun other teams is not an aspect of the game that we have in favor of us. We have to use our size and toughness to get through games. If we can control the ball, I think we're going to be in pretty good shape. Like they say, Offense wins games, defense wins championships. For us a championship would be just having a .500 season. It's been tough going around here for a long time. We as a coaching staff, myself as a head coach, have been trying to shape attitudes and behaviors and trying to pull the best out of these kids. Even though we went 0-9 last year, I personally feel that those kids on that team were successful. We learned a lot about life and going through hard times and persevering and striving to do their best, even though we didn't win."

The Blue Devils plan to win this year with a nucleus of seasoned players from that squad. "I have my returning starters from last year on offense," Jones says.

"They're kids with some pretty good experience. Some of them have played four years here at Varsity. We have some decent size in that group, decent talent amongst those kids. They're our core as far as leadership goes for the team also. Leadership from the kids is very, very important. …kids take direction, criticism, and suggestions, better from their peers sometimes."

Even though last year's new 9th grade team affected the Varsity team numerically, Jones and his staff knew it would pay off down the road. It is already. "The kids who are sophomores this year are a very solid group of kids. They're tough, very aggressive," Mark says.

"I'd say five of those kids have legitimate shots to be starters on the Varsity this year. I think the experience of them playing together as a group by themselves and getting a lot of individual attention from their coaches and a lot of playing time is going to be invaluable for us. Being that they are young, they are going to make some what I call 'sophomore mistakes' on the field. But their aggressiveness on the field, I hope, overrides that."

The Blue Devils are getting an added boost from a long-time area coach. Jones filled an opening on his staff with a local native. "Randy Tira, former West Shamokin coach, is now helping on the coaching staff," Jones notes. "He's going to help on offense, I'm looking forward to him working with the kids and tapping into his experience."

Coach Jones knows the season will be a challenge. But he believes in his players. "These kids are very hard workers… We have very good kids here in this school district. You've got to hand it to them: they keep coming." Who is this team that keeps coming and what is it doing to turn around the program? Mark Jones elucidates in the video interview at http://www.alle-kiskitoday.com/webcasts/1480