Preparation makes for great beginnings, conclusions at Maine Lobster Bowl
By Ernie Clark
Staff Writer
DOVER-FOXCROFT — The Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl Classic is loaded with beginnings and conclusions.
The annual all-star football game featuring the state’s top high school players from the previous year’s senior class is a summertime institution now in its 27th year, and already has raised more than a half-million dollars for the Shrine Hospitals for Children.
To those who participate that’s the biggest beginning, the opportunity to help youngsters they don’t know begin to recover from injury or illness simply by playing a sport they love.
The game, played Saturday from historic Waterhouse Field in Biddeford after a weeklong training camp at Foxcroft Academy, also represents a personal football beginning or conclusion for each player.
It’s the last game affiliated with their high school careers for the approximately 90 players divided into East and West squads, and many will never don their pads again — a definitive but memorable conclusion to their careers.
For others it’s the beginning of the next phase of their career, a head start of sorts for preseason practices on the collegiate level that begin next month.
And for some 20 coaches from around the state who donate their time to the effort, it’s both a final reflection on the previous season and a jump-start for the coming high school campaign less than a month away.
“It’s the kids, it’s the coaches, it’s the mission of what the Shrine does, really,” said East head coach Bob Sinclair of Orono High School, who also held the same position in 1999 when the East scored its first Lobster Bowl victory after nine losses. “It’s an awful lot of work to do this, but once you take that first step and get here and start doing it, it goes by really, really fast.
“And what the Shrine does with all the money that’s raised and all the exposure they get to help kids in the hospitals, that’s where it’s at.”
So no wonder given all the emotional elements related to the event that each year’s game is several months in the making.
Building a game plan
Work on the Lobster Bowl begins shortly after the end of the previous high school football season when coaches from around the state nominate players from their teams to fill the rosters.
“It means a lot,” said recent Foxcroft Academy graduate Connor Holmes of his selection. “It’s an amazing tradition that’s been going on for a long time and it’s something most high school football players look forward to once they’ve reached their prime and gotten to the end of their high school careers.”
The honorees then fulfill a fund-raising responsibility in order to assure their participation in the game while the coaching staffs begin to formulate game plans during the dead of winter based on their preliminary rosters.
“We met a few times before we got here,” said Sinclair. “We didn’t meet as an offensive staff or a defensive staff. We met all three times with both the offense and defense and looked at our stuff and looked at our personnel and made some decisions about what we would run to put the kids in the best position to be successful.”
It’s almost the equivalent to fantasy football for the coaching staffs, taking the state’s best individual football talent and molding it into successful offensive, defensive and special team units in just 15 practices spread over six days.
Analyzing talent and developing playbooks are two critical parts of the pre-training camp work, and that involves assessing roster-wide trends as well as particular personnel groupings.
“Take the Old Town kids, for example,” said Sinclair. “They had a fantastic year last fall [reaching the Class C North championship game]. It was a great job by their coaches and the community came alive and they brought football back there, so we knew we were going to be taking [wide receiver Andre] Miller and [quarterback Jake] Jarvis as a package.
“We wanted to take advantage of what those two kids do and coach them up with [Foxcroft’s] Hunter Smith and Anthony Brunelle from Cony (of Augusta). That’s what we did when we started, look at those kinds of combinations.”
That exercise was repeated at every level on the field, all producing what the coaches believe will be cohesive units as well as a playbook designed to maximize their potential.
“We all come from our different types of schemes, but football is football and ultimately the fundamentals of football are the foundation of everything,” said Foxcroft football coach Danny White, an assistant coach for this year’s East squad and a Lobster Bowl player representing the Ponies back in 2003.
“There’s no right and wrong way to do this, it’s just different and the terminology is different for the kids. But when you get right down to it, it just becomes football once the ball is snapped and this is a very unique week. I said it as a player and it’s even more unique as a coach because you can live vicariously through the kids. It’s tremendous.”
Behind the scenes
When the players and coaches arrived on this picturesque campus in southern Piscataquis County on a Sunday to start turning their preliminary work — in the players’ cases getting in shape for the double- and triple-session schedules leading up to the game — they were greeted by a host facility that similarly was in training camp mode.
Air-conditioned dormitories, home to approximately 100 international students during the academic year, were prepped for the incoming players, as were separate practice fields behind the school that provide the teams considerable privacy from each other.
“We have the dormitories, the facilities, the management staff and the staff in the dormitories that understands what a residential program is, they’re all very capable and knowledgeable when it comes to having a summer camp of this size because that’s essentially what this is,” White, also the chief financial officer at Foxcroft, said.
“We’re very fortunate to be able to host it here and to be able to operate almost like we run a normal school day.”
Perhaps no one on campus faces more preparatory work than the cafeteria staff charged with feeding the players and coaches four times a day — including an 8 o’clock “snack” each evening.
For the school’s veteran director of food service Rhonda Tyler and her staff, those efforts are similar to a typical school day even though they are feeding only a quarter of the people they do daily from September to June — Foxcroft’s enrollment is approximately 450.
“First of all, they’re great kids,” said Tyler earlier this week. “It’s been a challenge the first couple of days getting the numbers right. They’re eating what we would typically prepare for our three lunch waves during the school day for all the kids.
“We’re pretty much preparing for that many and they’re pretty much eating all of it. They’re big eaters, but they’re out there working hard.”
Rest and repetitions
Training camp is both a physical and mental challenge for the players.
While the teams enjoyed a bowling outing on Tuesday and visited nearby Peaks-Kenny State Park on Thursday, the rest of training camp is all about repetitions — and rest.
In particular, players are asked to grasp their responsibilities within the playbook as soon as they can upon receiving it when they arrived Sunday, and for the most part the students are quick learners.
“I think we’ve done great with it, our calls are getting on point and any time we have a question the coaches are right there to help us,” said Dylan Severance, a linebacker representing Brewer High School. “They’ve been extremely helpful throughout this and I think our defense is really starting to get it and get going.”
For the coaches, early mastery of the playbook by the players is crucial to steady progress throughout the week.
“Sunday and Monday and Tuesday are critical days, so we’ve got to be on the same page and that’s why those early meetings are so important,” said White. “We’ve got to get the offense and defense and special teams in, and you’ve got to make sure your offense is getting good looks from your defense and that we’re giving the defense the looks they need to see. We’ve got to be able to find time and structure the practice plans so everybody is getting equal repetitions.
“There’s a consensus of how things flow for the week, and probably by Monday night or Tuesday mid-morning we’d either say we’re all set in this area or we have to circle back because we’re falling behind and the week’s getting away from us.”
While the Lobster Bowl participants represent the state’s most experienced high school football players, there’s also some teaching to be done.
“Some of our kids have never pass-blocked out of a two-point set before because a lot of schools are in that shotgun spread formation, so we’ve had to work with some kids on that and I see improvement every day,” said Sinclair.
“You just have to teach them and keep repping it and they’ll get better. They’re bright kids and good athletes.”
How well they’ve understood those lessons and learned their playbooks was not known for sure until late Saturday afternoon after the East and West battled before upward of 5,000 football fans from around the state.
The West won last year’s game 45-21 and leads the overall series 18-8, but after losing the first nine games and 12 of the first 13, the East has rebounded to win seven of the last 13 matchups and six of the last 10 since 2005.
But while regional bragging rights are big news during training camp and on game day, all the preparation these players and coaches have done reflects an even higher calling.
“We all understand that the focus of this game is for the kids and the Shrine,” said White, “so as coaches you set aside what you do for the good of the team and to make it the best possible experience for the kids while they’re here.
“We certainly want to put them in the best possible position to be successful, but first and foremost it’s about understanding that this is a charitable event for an incredible cause. That’s why we’re here.”