Red & Black;1288385 wrote:Wow! I can't believe I'm hearing all of this crap! I'm sick of all this whining! This is not the 90's. Get over it. Back to back championships and working on a third and that's not good enough for you. Why are you still talking about last years discipline problems? In case you haven't noticed, Coach Sikora has weeded out most of his bad apples. If you've counted you"ll see we're down from 45 to 31 players. One you mentioned has been suspended the last two games. I speak to the coaches every day and have heard nothing about them leaving. And regarding Coach Rozum, he's at every home game because he's the asst. principal. It's his job to be there. I can't speak to his desire to coach again, except to say that I've never heard him say anything about it. It still amazes me how many of you say you want old-school Campbell kids on that field on Friday nights yet you're posting from Boardman, Warren, Struthers, Poland, Wintersville, etc. It's laughable, it really is. How can we put old-school Red Devils on the field when their parents have turned them into new-school Spartans, Wildcats, Eagles, Rockets or Bulldogs? Feel free to move back home help us fix what you think is broken.
From 45 players in the summer down to 31 by week 8. This tells me that there were kids on the roster during the summer that did not have the pride, dedication, or the heart to play for Campbell Memorial. So forget them. They did not want to be here anyway. Arguably the best athlete on the team is ineligible because of grades. Coach Sikora surely could have used him at tailback. There are Rozum rumors just about every year. Rozum is nearly 60 years old and has not coached Campbell football for 13 years. If indeed he has to attend games because his job requires him to do so, I wonder what he could be thinking as he watches many of these kids playing football with no fire, no pride, no aggressiveness week after week. It's pitiful for me to watch these kids WALK casually onto the field from the sidelines instead of hustling to the huddle and hustling up to the line of scrimmage. It's pathetic to see them WALKING onto the field from the lockerroom prior to the beginning of the third quarter while their opponents run onto the field. It's amazing that none of the seniors have stepped up to be leaders. For me, that is a huge problem. A team is only as good as its seniors. That being said, I have to question why Rozum would want to come back. If by some chance he ever does, I wonder how he would handle situations like those which have taken place over the past two years. In my opinion the roster would be cut significantly even before summer sessions began because some of the kids could not get through his conditioning program over the winter. Would he be able to instill the pride, fire, the attitude that the Campbell teams were known for during the 80's and 90's nearly 13 years after he last coached? I have a hunch that we have seen the last of the days when Campbell would intimidate an opponent just by lining up on the field.
I have had disagreements with friends and fellow fans about this point in the past. But this is what I truly believe has happened to the city of Campbell: Campbell has changed significantly since the 80's and the 90's. Heck, it has changed in just the past five years. People who were born and raised in Campbell are moving their families to the suburbs because Campbell has never come back from the devastating effects of the steel mills being shut down. Look around the city streets. The population of the city continues to decline as does the school enrollment. Property values are in the gutter. Furthermore, look at the attendance at home games. Where is the community support? We've got a stadium that seats over 7,000. And the attendance at home football games is less than the attendance at soccer games played by other schools. Campbell is a dying city. Some of the population is composed of families who have moved into Campbell from Youngstown. Hence, these are not Campbell people. Many of them do not understand or dare I say even are aware of the football tradition that Campbell has. I can't see that changing in any way, shape, or form no matter who the coach and the staff are. For me, it's a sad thing to watch.