A Preseason Primer on Indians Football

Grab your foam finger and stadium cushion, because the red and white have hit the green!

The Indians high school football team officially began practice for the 2011-12 season on Monday. We went to the field to check things out and talk to some members of the team.

This season, the team is led by a new head coach, Richard Piccinini, who was . Piccinini comes to Peters with approximately 20 years of high school coaching experience, including his most recent post as assistant football coach at Upper St. Clair.

In addition to an extensive work history, . He consistently refers to his players as “student-athletes,” as a way of acknowledging the importance of both the academic and athletic aspects of their lives.

Piccinini is joined on the coaching roster by another new coach. . Gildon, who holds the Steelers all-time record for quarterback sacks, coaches defense.

These new coaches aren’t the only new thing on the scene. The Indians graduated 23 seniors last year, which means that this year welcomes new members of the starting line-up as well as new members of the team.

“It’s an entirely new team,” Piccinini said, “with new coaches, new players and new plays.”

“We’re all learning from scratch and working together to turn things around. It’s going to be a lot of hard work, but everyone (on the team) is committed to it.”

Part of the team’s hard work occurred over the summer. Though official practice began on Monday, the Indians have been working diligently for many months now.

The young men on the team committed to summer conditioning, which primarily consisted of weight training and plyometric circuits. Piccinini said that his student-athletes have made great strides in the weight room over the past few months, and he expects that this will carry over onto the field.

Starting running back/cornerback Justin Miller commented on the importance of the summer conditioning program, “Coach has had us working very hard, probably harder than we’ve worked in the past. It’s really prepared us, both physically and mentally, and I think it will help us do really well this season.”

Miller is a senior at . He hopes to study engineering at Penn State after he graduates.

Another Indian who is optimistic about both this season and his academic future is senior-starter Andrew Erenberg. This young tailback, who said that Piccinini has the team “going in the right direction,” would like to play ball and study business in college. He is weighing scholarship offers from Fordham University and Kent State.

Guard/defensive end Clayton Evans is also weighing some scholarship offers in consideration of his academic future, which will include the study of communications and history.

“I love what (Piccinini) is doing,” Evans said. “He’s really turning our program around and laying a good foundation for our success.”

While the players were conditioning during the summer, Piccinini was further developing the team’s defensive and offensive playbooks and packages.

Piccinini reports that the team will run a 4-4 defense and multiple offenses. He tells fans to expect a hard, aggressive and physical game this season.

When asked if there were any particular match-ups he looked forward to, Piccinini said, “All the teams in our conference are well-coached and talented. There’s going to be a battle every Friday night—and, we’re going to work hard to win each one.”

For information on obtaining individual or season passes to these battles, check out the PTHS website.