Of all the reasons why Paul Ressa enjoyed his Gatorade shower last weekend, one had to be that his guys worked as a team to execute it.
"I actually got him over there to talk to him, distract him, while they dumped the Gatorade on him," said Randall Joyner, a running back and safety.
"Randall distracted him, had him all thinking about the game," said wide receiver/safety Al Lasker. "And next thing you know, here comes a ton of Gatorade."
The Trojans have been working as a team all year - which has led to their first playoff berth in 26 years, when their head coach played at Newman Smith. The program had been monumentally bad for several years -- in the five seasons from 2004 to 2008, the team won 8 games. this year, they're 7-2.
Terrell Wilson plays cornerback and wide receiver for the Trojans, and he remembers how it used to be. "Like when we down in a game, it's done. There ain't no coming back because we ain't used to winning. But now that we used to winning, keep it going forward, keep the mentality, keep the momentum driving, bring everything to the table."
Head coach Paul Ressa took a chance when he accepted the job three years ago, but it's a job he wanted, and one he had pursued and applied for in the past.
"When we first got here a lot of people, we took a job that a lot of people said that would kill a coaching career," said Ressa. "We just want to get it back to where I remember this place to be. It was a fantastic place."
When coach Ressa got here in 2007, he said the first job was to clean the house, and he meant that literally. He and the coaches painted the walls of the football headquarters from a dingy gray to the team colors, and they did the job themselves.
"I wasn't putting in any work orders," said Ressa, looking at his coaches' handiwork three years later. "I wanted them to see the coaches putting in the time and effort."
Effort is the key word for this team, especially when it comes the six players who play both offense and defense.
Al Lasker is one of those guys. "We have to make it work, because if you look at us, and you look at some of the bigger schools, we have 40 something kids on our varsity team, and they have 80."
"We're able to put our best players on the field, that's what he's saying," added Randall Joyner. "The best 11 are going to play. It doesn't matter if you on the other side of the ball, he's just going to play the best people."
Newman Smith's best has been plenty good so far. And now they can talk about playoffs for the first time since 1983.
"26 years of history can be erased in 3 years," said Lasker.
Coach Ressa smiled as he talked about the atmosphere around the school." They're talking about football now. Deep into October we're talking about Newman Smith football so it's different, and it's fun."
