SAUGUS — The Saugus football team kicks off its practice season Friday, and this year will be Coach Steve Cummings’ fifth in charge of the Sachems.
Throughout his tenure, Cummings has looked to create a culture of competition, accountability, and trust.
“It takes a while,” Cummings said. “It won’t happen overnight. Setting a culture takes years. I think our seniors, especially my captains, bought into what we want this program to be.”
Cummings describes this senior class as “special.” It only knows his system, too, something previous classes can’t attest to.
“The seniors, when I took over, I was their fourth head coach in four years,” Cummings said. “What we wanted to do here is establish some stability.”
“My seniors, right now, were in eighth grade when I got here,” he said. “I’m the only coach they’ve had. [The] structure of practices have been the same. Building your culture, the guys need to know what to expect.”
Cummings believes he has laid the foundation for the culture, and now, the building.
“From culture, comes success,” Cummings said. “We haven’t had the success we wanted to have over the past few years. With culture, the hardest thing is you have to trust me. You have to trust that the direction we’re going in is working. It hasn’t translated to playoff berths, but we’re hoping that changes this year.”
Cummings points to his seniors and captains for buying into his project.
“I’m beyond excited for this year. We have a fantastic group of seniors and a great group of leaders on this team,” Cummings said. “I’m looking forward to seeing what guys are going to step up and take on a bigger role.”
There will be five captains for the Sachems: Cam Preston, Braden Faiella, Tommy DeSimone, Isaiah Rodriguez, and Danny Shea.
“We’re really excited to see what this group can do,” Cummings said.
Cummings, despite helming Saugus for five years, never had a returning quarterback. This year, he finally got one.
“This is the first year that I’ve been there that we’ll have a returning quarterback,” Cummings said. “Cam Preston is a senior captain. He broke a few school records last year. We’re looking for him to make that next progression. It’s nice to come into camp [knowing] who’s played under the lights before. It’s nice to have a senior quarterback who has experience.”
For Cummings and the Sachems, they are looking for more than just a playoff berth – they want one on home turf.
“For us, the main goal is not to just make the playoffs, but we want to host a round one playoff game. That means we’ll have to be in the top eight in Division 5,” Cummings said. “Our other goal is to compete for league titles. I want to go to Peabody on Thanksgiving with the league title on the line.”
