Seeley on football: Another year, another playoffs vs. Thanksgiving dilemma

By Don Seeley
dseeley@pottsmerc.com

ROYERSFORD — Chad Brubaker made a decision this past weekend he didn’t really want to make, a decision he knew wouldn’t make a whole lot of people happy … a decision he truly believed he had to make.
Not long after Spring-Ford held off Ridley in last Friday night’s District 1-Class AAAA playoff game, and moments after school officials agreed to move up the annual Thanksgiving morning game with Phoenixville, Brubaker announced the Rams’ regular starters would not play tonight (7 p.m.) against the Phantoms.
It wasn’t necessarily a surprising move, or an unprecedented one for that matter, because the Rams have yet another game — and a much bigger game in every sense of the word — on Saturday afternoon when they travel to Pennridge in a district semifinal showdown.
“We had to make some decisions that we knew may be unpopular, but when everything is broken down we have to look at what is best for our football program and the safety of our players,” Spring-Ford’s third-year head coach explained. “There is a reason there are no football tournaments on weekend, why we only play one game a week.
“Our kids play 75-plus snaps a week, banging into other players who are big and strong, too. We played 48 minutes of physical, intense football at Ridley, and we’re going to have to play 48 minutes of physical, intense football against Pennridge. Our varsity players need time for their bodies to recover and rejuvenate. That’s why we can’t justify playing them against Phoenixville, why only non-varsity participants will play (tonight).”

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SEELEY COLUMN: Brubaker leading Spring-Ford to new heights

Spring-Ford football coach Chad Brubaker has guided the Rams to the District 1-AAAA semifinals.

By Don Seeley
dseeley@pottsmerc.com

Sometimes it isn’t about how big or how fast a player a coach sends out onto the football field as it is exactly who that imposing over-sized lineman or that lightning-quick running back may be.
As every coach readily admits, it’s awfully difficult, if not impossible, to measure, weigh or even clock those players’ character.
Character is the backbone of an athlete, and it distinguishes the strength and soul of a team as well as its confidence. And certainly not always, but way, way more often than many choose to believe, it is the foundation of any successful program.
Character … not only knowing how to do everything the correct way on and off the field as well as in and out of school, but committing to it.
It is exactly what Chad Brubaker was looking for when he interviewed for the head coaching position a Spring-Ford a little over two years ago.

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SEELEY: Even Brubaker pleased with Spring-Ford's first playoff win

By Don Seeley
dseeley@pottsmerc.com

Spring-Ford head coach Chad Brubaker

ROYERSFORD — Chad Brubaker can be difficult to please at times. Then again, he’s no different than most (if not all) high school football coaches.
He took over the Spring-Ford program two years ago and led the Rams to a turnaround 9-3 record, their most wins since 1999 — but was disappointed by not getting into the district playoffs. Last season, he led the Rams to a perfect 9-0 run through the Pioneer Athletic Conference for their first title and most wins since 1998 — but was disappointed by a very lopsided loss to Coatesville in the opening round of the district playoffs. This season, except for a Week Five setback to unbeaten PAC-10 champion Pottsgrove, he’s led the Rams to 10 more wins — and though obviously disappointed by not successfully defending the league title, he was elated last Friday evening after the Rams beat Garnet Valley for the milestone first postseason win in the opening round of the district playoffs.
But Brubaker still isn’t completely satisfied.
“We have been talking about dominating a team for four quarters, no matter the level of competition on the other side of the ball,” he said this past weekend as he began preparations for Friday night’s District 1-Class AAAA quarterfinal challenge at unbeaten Ridley.
“We have not played our best games against teams with inferior records to our own. Conversely, Garnet Valley was an excellent football team, and our level of play rose to the occasion.”
The Rams will have to up that level of play this week, of course.

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Spring-Ford 42, Upper Perkiomen 6

By Jake Hallman
Special to The Mercury

ROYERSFORD — Chad Brubaker and Steve Moyer both had their share of distractions heading into Friday night’s Pioneer Athletic Conference football game.

And the Spring-Ford and Upper Perkiomen head coaches, respectively, collectively had their share of questions just exactly how their squads were going to perform after their share of adversity.

For Brubaker, the big question was how his team would respond without the services of junior running back Jarred Jones, who is out the next few weeks due to injury. The other question mark for the Rams was just how well they would answer the challenge after what Brubaker called a lackluster effort in the team’s previous outing against Pope John Paul II.

Moyer and company, meanwhile, were interested in seeing just how well the Tribe would respond after a rough start to the 2012 season, and if the team can consistently show improvement every Friday night.

As it turned out, the Rams took the advantage on both fronts.

Spring-Ford scored on its first five offensive touches, then played some pretty solid defense as it rolled to a 42-6 victory. In the process, the Rams (2-0, 4-0) also notched a milestone win, giving the Spring-Ford program an overall winning percentage into next weekend’s big showdown against Pottsgrove.

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NOTEBOOK: Spring-Ford a win away from milestone

By Don Seeley
dseeley@pottsmerc.com

ROYERSFORD — When Royersford and Spring City high schools’ Thanksgiving Day rivalry ended in 1954, the football feud didn’t.

Spring-Ford coach  Chad Brubaker

Even the late Norm Reichenbach, who guided the Spring City program for a couple of seasons prior to the merger that formed Spring-Ford and was named the Rams’ first coach, couldn’t believe how competitive his new team was … and that was throughout the first couple weeks of practice, against one another.
“It was still Royersford against Spring City for a lot of the guys,” Reichenbach recalled during an interview back in 1979. “It took a little while for some of them to realize they were now on the same team.”
The Eagles and Pirates had won a lot of games, combined to win 15 league titles. So fans from both sides of the Schuylkill envisioned even more success when they first teamed up together in 1955.
It didn’t happen, not at first.
The Rams strung together four winning seasons, and two of them (1959 and 1962) looked like championship runs before late-season losses cost them Ches-Mont League titles.
It wasn’t until 1969, when third-year coach Merle Bainbridge guided the Rams to the first of three Ches-Mont championships.
And even though the Spring-Ford program would move into the Pioneer Athletic Conference in 1986, win six outright titles and share another, it wasn’t until last week — for the first time in over a decade — the program got back to even.

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