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Friday, August 1, 2008
Return To Glory
Central Kansas, KS
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By: Kim D. Kimbro
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Photo(s) By: A.M. Thomas
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Two players with Sumner County roots didn’t necessarily think their football careers would branch out at Conway Springs High. A legendary program now seeks a return to the top under their leadership
Everyone follows in someone’s footsteps. For Steve Young, it was Joe Montana. For Kevin Garnett, Bill Russell. Every Kansas City Royals third baseman from now to eternity will play in the shadow of the incomparable George Brett.
Lelin George, head football coach at Conway Springs the past three seasons, carries the legacy of Mark Bliss on his shoulders. Bliss led Conway’s legendary run through Class 3A beginning a decade ago, winning four state titles between the years 1998-2003, before current Conway athletic director Greg Rosenhagen tacked on a fifth as coach in 2004.
A former head coach at Argonia and four-year assistant before taking over at Conway in 2005, George has posted a 26-8 record in three seasons. Not bad, unless as an assistant you had never lost a game. On Bliss and then Rosenhagen’s staff from 2001 to 2004, George was undefeated, as Conway ran off four consecutive state titles.
Though he didn’t lay the foundation with Bliss, joining the party three seasons after the run began in 1998, George embraces the entire Conway tradition, stumping at every opportunity on behalf of the town’s best group of athletes in its history.
A meeting with George in his own backyard usually leads out of his English classroom and down the hall to the high school’s main foyer, where visitors cannot ignore the string of plaques hung in this atrium. Trying to read each plaque while spinning to count them all is dizzying.
George becomes a tour guide leading this guest through the town’s prep athletics museum. He must have a comment or side-story for every photo and trophy, as he offers play-by-play throughout the tour. Not lost on George is the fact that football wasn’t the only title-rich program at Conway in the past decade and half. He’ll talk about David Gardner and the volleyball team, which won five state titles of its own from 1997 to 2005.
The tour makes its way to the high school’s weight room, where visions of Conway football’s former dominance are inspired. Poster-sized photographs of Conway at state in single-wing formation reveal farm-bred hosses on the offensive line, punishing backs, taut and fast linebackers and towering safeties. Etched in the weightlifting record chart at the entrance are the names of 280-pounders who went on to play Division I football. On a plaque to the right are honored seven high school All-Americans, selected between 1998-2004.
“It used to look like a small-college team in here,” remembers George.
Over the past three seasons, “Conway U” became a distant memory as they fell out of state contention. But with two stout returning classes and the addition of OU-commit Jaydan Bird at fullback and linebacker this fall, 2008 could be Conway’s return to glory.
“There is the potential to make it to the state final this year,” says George, whose team was beaten at sub-state by Garden Plain in 2007. “But our schedule is going to be pretty tough.” In Conway’s district awaits defending state champ Garden Plain, whose 2007 march to the title is imprinted in the minds of every Cardinal player. The Owls punished Conway twice on the way to the top – 35-6 and 42-0.
George has high expectations for his squad to contend this year.
“I never go into a season hoping we can make the playoffs or maybe get a win in the playoffs,” he says. “I put a lot of pressure on myself and the team each year.
“It doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks or what else is out there in our area or the state. We have built a program that somewhat sustains itself, but it still takes a lot of work to maintain it.”
The work starts early in a town of 1,300 people who are just a little bit crazy about Cardinals football. Players migrate from the youth ranks to the junior high before entering high school, with expectations built into the program along the way. The freshman team at Conway last fall was undefeated on the field. While the fruits of that labor may not become apparent until next fall, 23 of those players are active in the summer weight and conditioning program. The future is bright once again.
“They expect to be successful and they expect to carry on the tradition that is here,” says George. “It is one of those things that you don’t want to be the year, team, or class that drops the ball, so to speak, and doesn’t achieve at a very high level.”
Junior quarterback Caleb Brill is expected to carry much of the load on offense this season. Brill ran for 1,381 yards and threw for another 524 last season en route to a 10-3 record.
Brill did not attend Conway Spings schools until he entered seventh grade in 2004, but he grew up in another tradition-strong football town, Wellington. Brill was in elementary school when Wellington won two straight Class 4A state titles in 2001 and 2002. When his family moved out to the country, he began his ascension through the ranks of another storied program.
“My sister went to high school here before me and I was able to go to two of the state championship wins,” says Brill. “I couldn’t wait to be a part of the program after that.”
George relies on kids like Brill with natural athletic ability and slots them in positions where they can succeed. Brill stands only 5’9” and weighs 170 pounds, but his intangibles make him an offensive threat.
“Caleb’s greatest asset is his field vision,” says George. “We allow them once they pass the line of scrimmage to make the adjustments they deem necessary to get the most yards after that. He sees the field well and can make good cuts to gain yardage.”
Brill and a senior class of 13 players will likely hold the key to Conway Springs’ success this season. George feels that small senior classes the past three seasons – eleven, nine and six – were a contributing factor to the team not making it to the state final.
One player out of the senior class is new to the program, though he has roots in town. Over the offseason, Jaydan Bird, who has an offer from Oklahoma University to play for the Sooners as a linebacker next year, transferred from Andover Central to his former hometown of Conway Springs.
“There are a lot of things that led me back,” says Bird, who moved out of Conway after the football team’s first of four straight titles in 2001. “I lived here my whole life up to the fifth grade. It is a great place and I love it here. I grew up knowing the tradition. My cousin played here in 1998 when they won a state championship.”
Bird, 6’3” and 230 pounds, is a special talent with something to prove. After rushing for 1,547 yards and scoring 28 touchdowns at Andover Central in 2006 as a sophomore, Bird played only four games into the 2007 season after cracking his left fibula. He rushed for 60 yards against Andale and 42 against Wellington in his final two games. With plans to graduate early and enroll at OU in January, Bird is ready to tidy up his prep career at his old stomping grounds.
“I’m glad I get to wear these school colors. We should do well and advance far into the state playoffs,” he says. “Instead of being anxious for one year, I’ve been anxious for two years. I sat out all of last year, so now I am pumped and ready to take on the season.”
Bird joins an already-strong backfield that includes Brill and senior back Nathan Pauly. They will line up as usual out of the single wing, a run-first offensive system dating back to Pop Warner in which one side of the line is stacked and there’s no telling where the ball will be snapped.
“I don’t know if it is an advantage anymore after 11 years [of running the offense at Conway Springs],” says George. “A lot of teams that are powerhouses in our state have seen the offense. I don’t think it is a mystery to them any longer.”
George believes the offense has evolved, anyhow, and may not resemble the same one which Bliss used back in the title days. “(The offense) has been good to us. It allows us to adjust our offense yearly to the personnel that we have,” he says. “I think that anyone who has watched our team the last four years has seen some pretty significant changes to the way the offense actually runs -- with nuances in it. It allows us to adapt and to move in a new direction without changing our base principles of how we want to approach the game.”
Some people still view it somewhat as a gimmick offense, but Conway has steamrolled many teams over the past decade with its implementation. The Cardinal program has yet to experience a losing season with the single wing.
Though the Cardinals enter their fourth season since reaching a state title game, they made sub-state in 2007 and lost three games by a touchdown each in 2006. Winning has been a certainty at Conway since the mid-1990s, no matter if Bliss, Rosenhagen or George was coaching. The program still seems to be in place.
A return to the pinnacle of Kansas prep football could be in the works in 2008.
“We have not one kid in our program that has a state championship ring on their finger,” says George. “So that is making them a little more hungry, and it drives them to be even a little bit better than we have been.”
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