It would’ve been hard to wipe the smile off Curtis Cherebin’s face last Thursday afternoon. It was announced last March that Cherebin would serve as Rocktown’s first-ever head varsity football coach, and ever since, he’s been gearing up for the moment he experienced on Thursday. The first day of practice.
Cherebin was taken aback by the significance of Thursday as the Raptors took the turf for the first practice in program history. “It’s surreal,” Cherebin said. “It’s a really good feeling.
It’s a feeling that I’ve wanted to have and feel for years. Now, I’m at the point where I get to come out here and lead the team and run the show, so to speak. It’s a blessing.
I feel honored and just really excited.” Between the brand new turf field, the uniforms, and the school in general, the players and coaches were in awe as they walked through warm-up exercises and stretches for the first time. “It’s beautiful here,” senior wide receiver Deacon Smith said.
“The turf is nice, it feels great. The view is beautiful, it’s perfectly placed.” Smith, like the majority of Rocktown players, come from HHS.
Even with the familiar faces, however, Smith feels it’s an all new team. “It’s good to be out here on the new turf, have the new equipment, and new everything,” Smith said. “It feels like a whole different team.
I feel like we can do something with this.” Smith got the chance to work with Cherebin last season with the Blue Streaks, and looks forward to closing out his high school career with him at Rocktown. “He was brand new to me [last year],” Smith said.
“He accepted me, I accepted him. He’s good with bonds and he’s a great coach. He has the skill sets to do everything for us.
” Towards the end of last season, Cherebin said there were interest forms sent around HHS to gauge who was going to RHS and who might be interested in stepping on the gridiron as part of Rocktown’s first football team. Cherebin pulled out all the stops — from running 7v7 summer practices to collaborating with the middle school athletic directors — to try and recruit players. Over the last few days, Cherebin said they’ve issued equipment to 89 kids, who are expected to make up the varsity and junior-varsity teams in some fashion.
“We’re expected to have about 40 varsity guys and close to 50 JV guys, which is far exceeding what I expected in this situation,” Cherebin said. “It’s just a blessing.” A lot of Rocktown’s incoming players, such as Smith, have on-field experience and know what they’re doing.
But for those who may not have any high school football experience, Smith believes they’ll need some training. For the experienced players, Smith said the focus is to bring the newbies up to their level. “We’re just trying to work with the younger guys and build them up to where we are, so we can all work together and be on the same level,” Smith said.
Cherebin said the key in the upcoming weeks of practice will be to create a standard, offensively and defensively. The Raptors are starting out slow with basic training and getting on-field movement, but as the weeks go by, Cherebin’s goal is to have an identity on both sides of the ball that will lead them to victories. “Generally speaking, we’re trying to build a solid base foundation for our offense and defense,” Cherebin said.
“The bread and butter on both sides of the ball, so that we can go out there that first night and have a good opportunity to compete and, hopefully, win us a game and start this program off with a winning record. That’s the goal.” In his final year of high school football, Smith partakes in the first chapter of Rocktown football.
Smith anticipates getting to work with Cherebin and the new coaching staff, as well as showing the area what the brand new Raptors team is made of. “I’m looking forward to being able to show what we can do and, hopefully, put some trophies in the trophy case,” Smith said..
