A week inside the Ooltewah High School football program

Owls dealt with tragedy, disappointment while prepping for last week's big game

From left, Ooltewah football players Hunter Smith, Gage Harris, Jason Tabor and Tyler Bradford get ready before their home game against Cleveland on Oct. 19.
From left, Ooltewah football players Hunter Smith, Gage Harris, Jason Tabor and Tyler Bradford get ready before their home game against Cleveland on Oct. 19.

Editor's note: Times Free Press correspondent Davis Lundy was granted access to team meetings and practices for one week to see how Ooltewah High School prepared for its key Region 2-6A game against Cleveland. Beginning on the night of the Owls' loss at top-ranked Maryville, the Times Free Press spent seven days inside the program leading up to last Friday's 34-20 win over the Blue Raiders that secured second place in the region and a first-round home playoff game.

photo The Ooltewah High School football team gathers around and listens to coach Scott Chandler as he gives his pregame speech in the locker room before a home game against Cleveland on Oct. 19.

The raw, deep emotions of an 18-year-old poured from Ooltewah quarterback Kyrell Sanford last Friday night after his team's seventh win of the season. Tears streamed down his face as he talked about his half-brother, who was killed on Third Street near Bushtown three weeks before, in the early hours of Sept. 29.

Throughout last week's 34-20 win over Cleveland, Sanford had been seen looking upward, pointing to the sky when his team succeeded. His position coach said he was talking about his brother, still awaiting burial, when he came off the field. After accounting for four of Ooltewah's five touchdowns, Sanford walked on the perimeter of the 200 or so players, families and fans celebrating the win.

Sanford, the clear leader of the team, then purposely walked into the midst of his teammates waiting for head coach Scott Chandler to arrive. Sanford forcefully challenged the Owls to fight harder and longer than two quarters of a game, a costly trait that had been too common with this Ooltewah team. His leadership was on full display, and each teammate knew he was right.

Less than a minute later Sanford stepped out of the team's huddle and hugged his mother Ebonae, as all the pain he had carried the past three weeks seemed to ease, at least for now.

"He told me, man, he told me," Sanford said, new tears flowing. "I know my brother told me last night that he would be here tonight, be with me tonight. He was up there all night long there was no way we would lose."

Seven days earlier, Sanford's mood was very different as he left the field at Maryville fter a humbling 42-0 loss to the reigning state champion Rebels, who are again the state's top-ranked Class 6A team.

In a "status check" game for the only high school team in Hamilton County playing in Tennessee's top public school division, Ooltewah didn't measure up.

After that Oct. 12 loss, the Owls knew the direction of their season was riding on how quickly they could regroup and prepare for Cleveland.

Early Saturday

photo Ooltewah football player Alize Carroll kisses the Friday Night Rivals Champion trophy after the Owls defeated visiting Cleveland 34-20 on Oct. 19.

The buses pull into Ooltewah High School shortly before midnight, two hours after Maryville pummeled the Owls. Within a half-hour the facilities are empty except for assistant coach Les Boyum, who wants to get the uniforms washed before he sleeps. Perhaps a good wash will get rid of the stench that came with the beating the team had taken.

The Owls had emerged as a 6-1 football team this year after going 5-6 in 2017. The team had a quiet confidence that came from having won three games with its last possession in the fourth quarter. But at Maryville the stage was too big.

Perhaps what caused these Owls to implode was the sight of 17 state championship banners hanging just past the north end zone. Maybe it was the fact that the stadium, facilities and field created a better environment than anything in Hamilton County. Or was it the business-as-usual attitude that seemed to permeate the entire complex from the parking attendants to the players? This was not a statement game for Maryville, simply the next game.

No day of rest

The last time a team from Hamilton County won the state championship in the top division was Red Bank in 2000. The five assistants who gather with Chandler at 2:30 p.m. Sunday after the Maryville debacle want the latest chapter in Ooltewah football history to be the one in which the program develops into making regular, deep runs in the state playoffs. That's what they want, but not necessarily what realities will allow.

photo Ebonae Sanford hugs her son Kyrell after he helped guide the Ooltewah Owls to a victory over Cleveland at Ooltewah High School's James N. Monroe Stadium on Oct. 19.

Unlike Maryville, Knoxville Farragut or Oakland, there is no championship pedigree at Ooltewah on which to build, no point in time when a coach took root for a 10- to 15-year run of success or the funding consistency that top-tier programs enjoy. The $100,000 that Ooltewah's program raises every year is harder to come by than the $100,000 at Maryville.

Chandler is blessed with a booster club that provides more than 80 percent of his yearly funding. Still, when Ooltewah has five assistants sitting around the table on this Sunday afternoon while 12 gather at Maryville, 15 at Dobyns-Bennett or 11 at Cleveland, that's a problem beyond the staff's control.

"I am not sure you can build that program in Hamilton County at this point," said Chandler, who was hired as the head coach in April. "But if it can be done, we are going to try and be the one that does it."

The 1,500-plus student school in eastern Hamilton County is 111 years old. It was only a few decades ago that the school was "out in the country" surrounded by nothing but pastures a stone's throw from I-75. Today it rests in the middle of everything in the fastest-growing part of the county. The Owls have been in the state football playoffs every year since 2000 but have no championships. Girls' basketball, softball, boys' and girls' track and field and wrestling have titles.

No one is quite sure what the historical record is at Ooltewah, but the program started in 1956. From 2000 to 2010, the program made three appearances in the state semifinals of Tennessee's largest division; the Owls made two quarterfinal appearances in the past seven years. In the past decade Ooltewah is 71-26, a 71 percent winning rate. From 2014 to 2016, Ooltewah was 33-7 under coach Mac Bryan, who left for North Carolina after the 5-6 season a year ago.

photo Ooltewah football coach Scott Chandler and Jarian Green smile as their home game against Cleveland on Oct. 19 comes to a close. The host Owls won 34-20 to earn a home game in the Class 6A state playoffs.

For the second time since 2000, Ooltewah had enjoyed a good run, a coach left and a new chapter began when Chandler was brought in from another program in Georgia. Again, there was a new coach, a new staff and a renewed energy producing good results. After experiencing Maryville for the first time as a coaching staff, however, the question is whether this version of Ooltewah can break the pattern of good runs and early playoff exits.

"We can build that kind of program," says Doug Greene, a veteran offensive coach who was at Ooltewah for two of the state semifinal runs, "but someone like Maryville already has the pieces in place. We don't."

Greene was a young coach at Riverdale in the late 1990s and experienced part of a 10-year run from 1994 to 2004 when the Murfreesboro school won four titles.

Like other staffs throughout the tri-state area, Ooltewah's coaches will spend five hours putting together the game plan for the coming week. The staff has three veteran coaches and three young coaches. All were volunteer coaches at one point in their careers, which is common for schools where coaching supplements are scarce.

Chandler, Boyum and Greene are the "Gulf South Conference" connection, as they met each other while coaching at colleges in the NCAA Division II league. First-year offensive coach Christian Mainer is a special education teacher and the brother of a special needs child. Defensive coach Kerry Jackson is a history teacher, Green teaches economics, offensive coach James "Goose" Manning teaches personal finance and Boyum oversees classes using the weightroom.

Chandler, who has had 14 coaching stops since 1990, teaches computer application.

photo Ooltewah quarterback Kyrell Sanford (7) talks to his teammates after they beat Cleveland on Oct. 19 to bounce back from a disappointing blowout loss to top-ranked Maryville the week before.

The conference room in the Ooltewah facility is also Greene's office. A Bible open to Proverbs sits on his desk. Chandler has two books on his office coffee table: a heavily highlighted copy of Tony Evans' book "No More Excuses: Be the Man God Made You to Be" and "Lead for God's Sake" by Todd Gongwer. There is a sense of ministry with the staff that is more than building a football program.

The first order of business is selecting the offensive and defensive players of the game from the Maryville loss.

"OK, who should we select?" Chandler asks.

Silence.

"Makes sense," Chandler says.

After more silence, Braun points out that Christian Benoit, a junior offensive lineman and Division I prospect, had several good plays.

"So it's Benoit," Chandler says.

The coaches break into offensive and defensive meetings for the next three hours. Between midnight Friday and Sunday afternoon, each has watched the Maryville video and previewed video on Cleveland. Like high schools throughout the country, Ooltewah uses Hudl, a software system that provides content and analytics.

"When you get right down to it, Hudl is nothing but an Excel spreadsheet," says Boyum, the elder statesman on the staff at 59.

In minutes, the coaches access six games of Cleveland tape complete with a breakdown of every formation and every play on both offense and defense. Over the course of the afternoon it is a "clicker heaven" in the defensive room as Chandler, Boyum and Jackson look at every play 15 to 20 times.

The two Cleveland backs are "quick dudes who run downhill." The quarterback doesn't really want to run, locks in on a receiver at the snap and rarely goes another way. Cleveland prefers to run outside, and the Maryville performance surfaces as Chandler offers a less-than-positive assessment of how the Ooltewah defense did in "setting the edge" two days ago. Gaps and talent issues on the offensive line lead to a Cleveland quarterback often under duress.

The basic changes to the defense the Owls will put in place for Friday night's game will now be turned into practice scripts for Monday afternoon.

"These are not just good football people," Chandler said of his staff. "They are good character people, and they don't just see football players, they see people. That is not always the case."

The next step

Coming off the loss to Maryville that eliminated Ooltewah from region championship contention, the team is given a new set of goals: to beat Cleveland on Friday, which would secure a first-round home playoff game, and to finish 8-2.

Benoit gets his player of the game certificate, and Chandler talks about the distractions that come with homecoming week, especially the fact that some of his players will be coaching in the "powder puff" game Thursday.

photo Ooltewah's Johnnie Chumley tackles Cleveland's Jasiah Bowman during their Oct. 19 game in Ooltewah.

"I pity the girls who have you guys as coaches," he says.

After five minutes, the players break into six position meetings where the game plan developed Sunday is presented. Twenty minutes of looking at Cleveland offensive and defensive plays pass quickly by, and the players go to the practice field where the plan will be implemented and rehearsed over the next four days. The practice ends earlier than normal because the junior varsity has a game at 6 p.m. with Bradley Central.

The entire coaching staff is on the sideline at Bradley, extending their day that began with the bell at 7:15 a.m. until past 9 p.m. A senior basketball player who came to the team only a month ago returns a kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown, and Chandler smiles at the prospect that Julian Walker may develop into a weapon for the Owls come playoff time.

"This is it, where the building has to start," Greene says as he watches his offensive assistants coach the game. "You need kids that start as freshmen and stick with it even though they will not play much. But by the time they are seniors, they are guys who will be able to contribute, add depth."

Chandler said the middle schools that feed Ooltewah - Hunter and Ooltewah Middle - are now starting to implement the Owls' schemes, another building block. That has not been the case in recent years because Ooltewah leaned on the pass, which is not a great fit at the middle school level.

The coaches realize that what makes perennial powers perennial is talent. More than a dozen of the 72 players on the Ooltewah varsity came to the Owls through transfer from their designated school zone. Chandler points to the new Future Ready Institutes and the varying academic offerings as a new path for players to move from their existing school zones. And then there are Baylor, McCallie and other private schools that actively recruit players from the inner city.

"The things that are happening in the school system that make it easier to move around will be something that benefits us in building the kind of program we want at Ooltewah," Chandler says. "Academics will end up helping athletes here."

The school system provides no money for athletics at Ooltewah. First-year athletic director and former girls' basketball coach Jensen Morgan manages 16 sports and 30 coaching supplements that run from 2 percent to 15 percent of salary, and he is unpaid. The football program needs more supplements to compete, but few believe any are forthcoming.

Greene said there was an effort in 2007 to devise a policy that increased supplements based on an increase in players on a team. Both Knoxville and Hamilton considered the proposal, but the economic downturn of 2008 ended the effort in Hamilton while Knoxville went forward implementing the policy.

"Hamilton County played better football than Knoxville when I was here before, but not now," Greene said. "Supplements are a huge reason."

The facilities at Ooltewah do not match up with the teams it plays. For instance, Cleveland plays on the latest evolution of artificial turf. The Cleveland school system paid $700,000 for a field that coach Scott Cummings said was priced at $1.2 million. In return, Cummings hosts teams from all over the country, including the leadership of the New England Patriots, on behalf of the manufacturer.

The leadership at Ooltewah recognizes and accepts that the structure and politics of Hamilton County schools likely never will meet the facilities needs of the football program.

photo Ooltewah football coach Scott Chandler has helped the Owls succeed in his first season leading them.

"My experience with a bunch of school systems tells me that each one determines over time what value it wants to place on football and on athletics in general," Chandler said. "That's just the way it is."

Yet Boyum pointed to one thing that has nothing to do with the building blocks of junior varsity, freshman and middle school teams, specialization, staff consistency, facilities, supplements or attracting talent.

"It comes down to expectations," said Boyum, a burly Scandinavian and veteran of 28 years coaching at the college level and 12 with high schools. "If the expectations are right and players work toward those expectations, then everything else works. Kids will want to go to a place where they know they will win."

The quarterback

Throughout the week, the Ooltewah players have known it wasn't just the death of Sanford's brother, Areeyon, that has burdened their quarterback. Seven days after his brother was killed downtown on Sept. 30, a 12-year-old Girls Leadership Academy student and her father were killed in a Rossville house fire. The young girl who died on Oct. 6 was "as close as one of my sisters and in our house all the time," Sanford said of the child he used to walk to school in the morning.

"Losing my brother was tough," Sanford says as he prepares for the Wednesday practice, the only one in pads for the week. "He wasn't around much, but we made sure we knew where he was, that he had food and was OK. Losing my sister's best friend, crazy, man, that was bad."

Sanford grew up in Highland Park and portrays a tough exterior on the field as well as in the school hallways. It's there as he walks between classes, earbuds in place. It's there as he stands against the wall in the weightroom as some of his teammates lift. And it was there on the sideline during the final minutes of the beatdown Maryville put on his team two weeks after the way-too-early deaths of his brother and his sister's best friend.

"It's what Kyrell wants people to see," Chandler said.

photo Ooltewah quarterback Kyrell Sanford has handled his leadership role well, Owls quarterbacks coach Goose Manning said.

Sanford plays private schools in the spring on a Fellowship of Christian Athletes lacrosse team and wants to play his quarterbacks coach in golf. He professes to stay off social media to avoid the drama and offers a wry smile discussing his girlfriend's faithful attendance at his games, even Maryville. He came to Ooltewah because his father wanted a different environment for his son, not because of football. It's noticeable but not spoken that Sanford is the central leader of the team, a designation Sanford deflects at every opportunity.

"It's a label, and I don't want to label myself," said Sanford, who has thrown for 1,017 yards and rushed for another 416 through eight games. "The label comes with being the quarterback, but I just do what I do and make sure I am doing my job."

Goose Manning played quarterback at Ooltewah in 2011 and is Sanford's position coach and future golfing partner. The second-year varsity coach has spent more time with Sanford than anyone at Ooltewah, traveling to college football camps this past summer and getting as close as anyone outside of his immediate circle gets to Sanford, who came to Ooltewah from Tyner Middle School. Manning saw Sanford put up more impressive statistics a year ago (2,071 yards passing, 800 yards rushing, 25 total touchdowns) when he carried more of a burden on a 5-6 team.

"Kyell has a broad set of shoulders," Manning said. "We ask a lot of him as our quarterback, and he's had plenty going on outside of school, but you would never be able to tell. Kyrell is exactly what we need at that position right now. He's cool and collected, knows when he should say something to the guys and knows when to just say, 'Come on, boys, I've got us.' The guys believe him when he says it."

Chandler said Sanford has the talent, grades, personality and confidence to play college football, and the coaches are committed to working with him and six or seven Owls seniors as decisions about playing college football are made in the next few months. When asked about his quarterback, it takes Chandler only seconds to answer.

"He's a guy who has been through more than most of us will ever go through," Chandler said, "but he needs to learn, as a real man, that you have got to be willing to ask and receive help."

It takes Chandler even less time to speak about why he coaches, and why it is important to impact the lives of young men like Sanford.

"To make a difference," he said, "and just to let them know that it doesn't matter how good a player they are or if they ever play. But they matter as people, you know, because God doesn't make no junk."

photo Ooltewah's Tanner Rhodes, right, congratulates teammate Malachi Quinn on scoring a touchdown against visiting Cleveland on Oct. 19.

View from the inside

The time of the Thursday powder puff game, 1:15 p.m., works out well for Fisher Perry, a sophomore receiver for the Owls.

Perry is the high school version of a walk-on, a home-school student. After studying at home, he arrives at the school just in time to get ready for practice. The 6-foot, 160-pound slot receiver with sticky hands leads the team in receiving with 17 receptions for 228 yards and three touchdowns.

"It feels the same, like I have been here all day," he said of not being on campus until early afternoon. "I miss a few things, but it's just like I have been around the team all day when we start getting dressed."

Perry is the kind of player the program will have to find and develop if it is going to build beyond a team that is a constant playoff participant but rarely around for more than two weeks of the postseason. He said he would love to look back 10 years from now and see that the 2028 team made the quarterfinals - again.

"Yeah, I believe that can happen here," Perry said. "I think we all believe we can do that with Coach Chandler."

Game day

photo Ooltewah football coach Scott Chandler sends Matyeus Crutcher into the Owls' home game against Cleveland on Oct. 19.

Angela Cass did not start the week knowing that on Friday afternoon she would be part of a homecoming pep rally at the county's largest high school. Cass was named principal at Ooltewah on Oct. 24, after previous principal Robin Copp announced she was leaving to work for the state education department.

"It's surreal," Cass said of her instant transition from a middle school principal. "I'm just going to roll with it."

Jensen, the school's AD, said Ooltewah is like most high schools in that success in football impacts the entire school. He likes what he sees from his new football staff.

"If football starts good, it can set the tone for the whole year," said Jensen, who hired six new head coaches in his first few months on the job. "Coach Chandler has really gotten the players to buy into the idea of family. They have each other's backs, and there is less individuals on the team."

For the first time in a week, the Maryville game is not mentioned in the locker room or as Chandler gathers the team at 2:30 p.m. The rundown to kickoff is covered, red socks are distributed and the group moves to the 3 p.m. team devotion. The message from a convicted methamphetamine dealer turned small businessman and missionary to young people has a straightforward message: Don't let your failures define who you are.

A meal of steak and baked potatoes donated by a local business through the booster club is served, ankles are taped, short position meetings are held and the players turn to ear buds and iPhones until the first players go to the field at 6:30 p.m. After 30 minutes on the field, the team gathers for a circle of prayer outside the locker room before 10 more minutes of ear buds and quiet reflection.

Sincere Quinn, the team's leading rusher, is not quiet as he goes from teammate to teammate talking about a quote in the Cleveland newspaper in which a Blue Raider said that if Cleveland came out "hitting and swarming, (the Owls) will lay down."

"We'll see who lays down," Quinn says.

Chandler brings the team to one end of the locker room. He uses a character from the book of Judges, Shamgar, to make two points. First, when Shamgar met "the thugs" on the road who refused to let them pass, he didn't make excuses or try to find a way around the trouble - he met the challenge head on. Second, when Shamgar had to do what he was called to do, which was kill 600 Philistines, he did it one man at a time.

The translation is that there are no excuses available for not dealing with the Blue Raiders head on, and the best way to win the overall war is winning one battle at a time.

"You get it?" Chandler asks.

"Yes," the team responds, loudly and in unison.

"Let's fly, boys."

Contact Davis Lundy at sports@timesfreepress.com.

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