LYNN — It’s the Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend, and the Classical football players are running. Hard.
They’ve been through a tough scrimmage with Everett the night before, so coach Brian Vaughan figured this would be good day to replace the banging of contact drills with a little conditioning.
“There’s a point to it,” says Vaughan, who was appointed last spring to be the new coach of the Rams. “You get through these, maybe you won’t be so tired in the fourth quarter.”
Vaughan is a graduate of Lynn English, and went to the Division 3 Super Bowl his senior year. After high school, he attended Northeastern and played for Swampscott native Barry Gallup. There, he held, for a time, the school’s rushing record (broken by Saugus’ L.J. McKanas, and then Masconomet’s Rich Gale after that).
Since graduating from college, Vaughan has coached at three high schools, with some degree of success. He took Pope John to the Super Bowl, turned around Boston English, and was doing his best to deal with a tough situation in South Boston when the Classical job opened up.
“We’ve had some success,” said Vaughan. “We’ve battled some adversity. But in dealing with these adversities, it makes you better.”
Vaughan hopes that the Rams get the benefit from that experience.
“The biggest thing,” he said, “is my experience. We’ve gone through this a couple of times now.”
However, the Rams lost some key players to graduation last year. Their leader this season is Chase Buono, a junior, who made the key block last year that sprung Marcus Rivera to his improbable kick return to win the Thanksgiving Day game over English.
“He’s an outstanding player and an outstanding person,” Vaughan said. “Those types of qualities help your team become better.”
Buono will play safety and call defensive signals.
Vaughan is also counting on Nashaun Butler, a junior, who will be a receiver and a cornerback. And from the sound of things, Butler will be come one more in a line of Classical runners who are tough to catch in the open field.
“He can be shifty with the ball,” Vaughan said. “He’ll be one of our leaders.”
Javien DelGato, a 2-way lineman, is also a leader, Vaughan said.
“He’s been really good about getting everyone together in the weight room during the off-season,” said Vaughan.
Calling signals, at this point, is Keith Ridley, although that’s subject to change. Ridley and Kyle Peachey are fighting it out for the position.
“At the moment,” said Vaughan, “Keith has the edge.”
One of the reasons Vaughan has his players running as much as he does is because he wants to run a no-huddle spread, which pretty much demands that his players be in tip-top condition.
“We want to go as fast as possible,” he said.
Toward that end, the Rams will go back and forth between two running backs: Malcolm Best and Marcus Tucker, both juniors.
Others Vaughan is relying on include Dyrrell Rucker, a basketball player, “who you’re going to see a lot of offensively;” Adam Washington, a senior receiver; and Tyreese Joseph, who Vaughan will “be counting on heavily.”
Even though Vaughan says he will be running a no-huddle spread, this is no West Coast offense.
“It’ll be 50-50 between running and passing,” he said. “I want to keep the team balanced. That’s the approach I have.”
One of the things Vaughan was heartened to see, while watching film from last year, was how engaged most of the Rams were at the end of games in what was a trying 2-8 season.
“That’s the thing that stood out,” he said. “The kids didn’t quit. There were a lot of sophomores playing, and not a lot of experience. But they were tough kids. They kept playing.”
This year, he said, “our goal is to take it one day at a time, one game at a time, and keep getting better.”
The Rams open their season Friday night (7:30) against Medford in the second game of a Manning Field doubleheader
