Running to a new beat: A new coach and new philosophy in Jonesville

With their football program teetering on upper echelon status in the Big Eight and drawing closer to another state playoff berth, Jonesville athletic director Kathy Bondsteel looked to a former Hudson Tiger to transform her Comets from boys to young men.

Joshua Lindeman is a self-professed blue-collar kind of guy who loves to bang heads and throw people on the turf (he was a fullback and linebacker after all).

He can hardly contain himself when talking about the challenge that lie ahead at the county's second largest school.

At the first-ever Jonesville football camp for 9th- to 12th-graders, which began Monday, Lindeman has been quick off the line of scrimmage in getting his players to realize that being outstanding, disciplined individuals will go a long way when striving for tangible success. Lindeman said Bondsteel brought him in to develop leadership and create a lasting Friday night tradition and he has been hard at work ever since he was hired in early May.

"When I got hired here I was expected to do some things and one of them was to clean up the leadership and things of that nature," he said. "As a high school player I was a blue-collar player from a blue-collar family who just hit a lot of guys and enjoyed it. That's kind of the intensity and determination I want out of the players in this program. It's going to be our goal to be the toughest team on the field every Friday night."

Soon after taking the job, Lindeman unveiled his first lesson on how football can equate to life. Instead of just taking a vote and picking captains for the 2009 season, he implemented an entire interview process.

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Rainouts bite, but so does eating chalk

By RJ Walters / Daily News Sports Editor

This column was published in the Hillsdale Daily News on April 15, 2009

Sure May flowers are splendid, especially in the second cloudiest state in the nation (I will never move to Washington, mark my words) but at what expense?

As it looks right now, at the expense of all athletic directors, teenage athletes and media outlets covering high school sports.

Singing "rain, rain go away, so all the area's sport stars can play," in the shower every morning for the past week seems to have done little, other than convince me that "sleepless sports journalist" was indeed a better career choice than "underground, indie rock star wannabe."

Rainout after rainout to start the spring schedule has had plenty of real implications though. Just ask Kathy Bondsteel or Pete Beck or any one of your local ADs. They are forced to try and play Jenga with their schedules prior to the season, only to see a small headwind knock a few blocks down, blocks that may never get put back into place.

ADs are generally under-appreciated as a rule, and a few extra hours on the phone without an extra dime coming on their next paycheck is all part of it.

As for high school athletes, cancellations are the worst. For one, it gives coaches another two hours to play drill sergeant and it also means parents can do even more nagging about homework because their kids don't have something taking up four hours of their time after school. Rainouts are the equivalent of giving up ice cream for lent only to find out worldwide production of ice cream was halted a day before Easter.

And parents might not admit it, but watching their local team while eating a hotdog from the concession stands totally beats making dinner, doing the dishes and catching up on office work that just begs to be done. Plus it doesn't help that many fans organize their schedules around high school sports teams and another stinkin' storm might mean they are out of town for the make-up date.

For me, someone who still can't believe he gets paid to roll out a lawn chair, take stats and sip on a nice cold Coke from time to time, mushy fields mean staying glued to my chair, damaging my vision by staring into a certain 24-inch wonder world and writing columns that try to fill the void of game-winning home runs and record-breaking long jumps. As fun as it is, rain days are a definite low on the continual up-and-down histogram of everything sports.

Sure enough though, it can get plenty worse in the unpredictable, often comical sports universe. Here are a few things to remember when you groan about the next rain date (which could be today!).

Rainouts are better than:

Being a battling bather
That's right, the Mt. Clemens High School mascot is just that. I always feel sorry for players who are on teams that will get more recognition for their ridiculous nicknames than for their achievements. Also in Michigan the Zeeland East High School teams are nicknamed the Chix, yes with an X, while their Zeeland West counterparts are the Dux. No guy wants to buckle up his chin strap for the purpose of being called a girl and I can only imagine how much quacking opposing fans do when Zeeland West players step to the charity stripe. Even worse though is the Detroit Pershing Doughboys. Offensive linemen might have some fun with that, but what 17-year old volleyball star wants "Doughgirl" slapped across her chest? The teams names around here might seem boring at times, but as you see, maybe that's not a bad thing.

Eating chalk
Just trust me on this one. And no it wasn't some stupid dare from my childhood I'm bringing up. It was a wild-nutso enthralling sports moment — gone terribly wrong. I was about 16, I was practicing on the high bar for an upcoming high school gymnastics meet; I was working on a combination that included a few "giants", no not the type you see in nightmares, just a rotating, twisting thingy. I don't want to bore you, so here's the climactic moment — I went flying off the high bar, saw cement and my future flash before me and instead of someone having to call the ambulance, I plummeted head first in a metal chalk bin. White power erupted all over, the bin broke my fall and I hit my knees, the only real scuffs from a potentially serious injury. The only problem with trying to sound all manly when I tell this story is the fact I was wearing a unitard and short shorts. And FYI, chalk tastes bad — for like the next week.

Shooting on the wrong basket
I was actually better at gymnastics than I was at basketball, but this story is about a teammate. A teammate who boxed out his opponent on a free-throw, grabbed the ball with both hands and went back up with it. Picture perfect execution, other than the fact he almost scored for the other team. It might be the only missed shot of his career he's happy to have clanked. It was also one of the last meaningful plays of his high school hoops career as friends and fans came to find out.

The University of Alaska Anchorage hockey team's road schedule
In 2008-09 the Sea Wolves (wouldn't Polar Bears suffice?) had it about as bad it gets for D-I college sports. The 20 road contests isn't too out of the ordinary, but the distances they had to travel to go to places that look like they should be used for backdrops in small-town horror movies is almost terrifying in itself. The Sea Wolves had to make three trips to Minnesota, the state of 10,000 lakes (and several hundred rinky-dink towns), one to North Dakota, another to Wisconsin and one to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. If you love a sport you love it, and my guess is the Sea Wolves would play hockey in the middle of the Northwest Territories if they had to. But still, I'd much rather play sports for the University of Santa Barbara and travel the West Coast

Going 0-for-a-career
If you think rainouts are unbearable, try a blackout — on winning of all things. Savanna High School in Illinois lost 63 straight varsity football contests before finally winning a game. That means somewhere between six and seven graduating classes never won a single game in their entire careers. There's something to be said for coming together through tough times, but there's also something to be said for a losing streak that stretched through the greater part of two presidential terms. Being dubbed a lovable loser though has no greater appeal than in the world of sports, part of its endearing charm. Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated (at the time) took a trip to watch them play the No. 2 team in the state for a story he was doing. Savanna got absolutely creamed, but the consolation prize was Reilly hopped on their bus after the game and treated them to pizza, and eventually SI published an article on them.

Only in sports are crazy things like this normal and only in sports does an inch of rain matter so much.

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13 recruits in the fold for Chargers after signing day

By RJ Walters / Daily News Sports Editor

As published in the Feb. 5, 2009 edition of the Hillsdale Daily News

Keith Otterbein is all about being a “Hillsdale guy” through and through and his recruiting classes continue to show the school’s character and personality in very tangible ways.

East Grand Rapids running back Joe Glendening, the Gatorade Rise Player of the Year in Michigan, is the signee garnering the most attention early on, and rightfully so, given he ran nearly 2,600 yards last season. But 12 other high school seniors signed their names and faxed in their intentions to don Charger blue in the fall on Wednesday, and according to Otterbein their is plenty more than just Glendening’s commitment to get excited about.

Of the 13 players who committed to the program there are five offensive lineman, three defensive lineman, two  cornerbacks and a receiver, running back and linebacker.

A second linebacker backed out from a verbal commitment Wednesday and that perturbed “Otter” a bit, but it was not enough to stop him from expressing plenty of joy.

“This group has met our needs pretty well. We liked these guys on tape and in person. Not only from a physical standpoint and a football standpoint but also because they’re our kind of guy, a Hillsdale guy,” he said. “They’re all Hillsdale guys, that’s the one thing you can say about that list. We don’t soft sell the challenges academically and the competition we have here.”

Otterbein said that unlike many football programs the Chargers actually get a majority of the guys they offer scholarships to, proof that Hillsdale is not your average D-II institution in a number of ways.

“We’re not a typical school, we’re not a typical football program. We don’t just throw a bunch of money around and hope something sticks,” he said.

Otterbein said ideally he would’ve liked to snag another couple of linebackers and possibly another wide receiver, plus a tight end, but it’s possible they will be able to do so prior to spring practices. Otterbein said via walk-ons and maybe a few more scholarship players he’d like to bring 25 new players to camp.

More than half of the recruiting class is linemen and while Otterbein said he didn’t plan on it to work out that way, he is especially pleased with the athleticism and agility of the group.

A prime example is offensive lineman Mike Cashin from Independence, Ohio. He comes in at 6-8, 240 pounds and while critics may question his weight, Otterbein is quick to point out his strengths and the potential he possesses.

“He’s not a bean pole by any means. He’s like Veldheer, he’s like Davignon, where they’re the big guy, maybe not 315 walking in the door, but those are some pretty big guys now,” he said. “And more importantly he can move. He bends his knees and can play in space and that becomes a priority in the speed game.”

Also of note in this class is a pair of cornerbacks, Nicholas Galvan (5-11, 182) of Adrian and Steven Harding (6-0, 183) of Detroit Catholic Central.

Otterbein said it may be the best tandem his staff has brought on board in a single class in his tenure here.

“I’m trying to think if ever in our recruiting classes we have brought in two guys as good as that,” he said. “We’ve had some good corners....even some all-league recognition kind of guys, but I don’t know if in a given group we’ve brought in two guys we felt were as athletic, that ran well and instinctively play the game.”

When asked about how many of the incoming recruits might see the field in 2009, Otterbein was completely noncommittal.

“We really are trying to figure that out throughout this winter based on our current guys getting bigger and stronger. The advantage the guys on campus have is they’re working out four days a week right now and they’ll have 15 practices in the spring they get in and they’ll be in either their second, third or fourth year of football here,” he said. “I would say a general statement, skill guys like (wide receiver) Andrew Mott or Galvan or Harding or Joe have more of a chance because speed is speed and the physical development will come. While as on the offensive and defensive line that overall strength comes from maturity and they’ve just got to grow up a little bit.”

Also of note in Wednesday’s commitments is that offensive lineman Tim Hornak (6-5, 215) of Muskegon Catholic Central is the nephew of Chargers tight ends / running backs coach Pat Hornak.

And even though they are from different counties, Harding and offensive lineman Nicholas Landry (6-3, 268) were actually teammates at Detroit Catholic Central.

“We like these guys and we’ve talked a lot about it. We don’t worry about the guys who don’t come, we just love and work with the guys who are here and have good skill and good character and are a good fit for Hillsdale,” Otterbein said.
The entire 2009 Charger recruiting class as of Wednesday

Nathan Bundy, DL
6-2, 248, Mt. Vernon, Ind.
Mike Cashin, OL
6-8, 238, Independence, Ohio
Zach Cherocci, DL
6-1, 242, Brother Rice
Steven Embry, LB-K
6-1, 196, Clinton, Mich.
Nicholas Galvan, DB
5-11, 182, Adrian, Mich.
Joe Glendening, HB
5-11, 178, East Grand Rapids, Mich.
Steven Harding, DB
6-0, 183, Detroit Catholic Central
Tim Hornak, OL
6-5, 215, Muskegon Catholic Central
Trent Kramer, OL
6-1, 253, Hudsonville, Mich.
Nicholas Landry, OL
6-3, 268, Detroit Catholic Central
Andrew Mott, WR
6-0, 169, Paulding, Ohio
Patrick Ryan, OL
6-5, 262, Davison, Mich.
Jordan Sharp, DL
6-2, 226, Whiteland, Ind.

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