Clark, Eagles look to find joy in playing football
The window for spring football is to allow schools to – if nothing else - crown a conference championship.
There will be no playoffs or state tournament and for Eldorado head coach Joe Clark after not coaching a game in over a year, a lot of things have been put into perspective.
"More than anything, with the shut down and the unique circumstances that everyone has been dealing with in the last year, has really put everything in perspective and I think our job will be going out and finding the joy in playing football.
"You have goals as a coach for your team, you want to put them in the best position possible for success, in this case a conference championship. We're just glad to be out here together and play."
Eldorado, which plays in the Black Diamond Conference and is made up 10 teams, will be forced to not play three opponents: Johnston City, Chester and Vienna-Goreville. Chester is gone after this season and will be replaced by Flora.
The Eagles, who finished 5-5 in 2019 and lost to Bismark-Henning in the first round of the 2A playoffs, open up the season Friday at home against Sesser-Valier and Hamilton County in Week 2. Weeks 3 and 4 will be played on Saturdays, first at Carmi-White County, followed by a home game against Christopher-Zeigler-Royalton. EHS will close out the season on the road at Edwards County and at Fairfield.
Football has had some unique challenges for Clark, who first got the green light in August to do workouts. That was halted and then allowed to resume much later in the calendar. Now the sport is sandwiched between basketball, which ended last Friday and baseball, which starts in seven weeks.
"You have to be creative and flexible and find a way to figure it out" Clark said of getting his kids ready for the season. "We try to have some balance for these guys, where they can compete in some of the other sports that are important to them and still try to find a way to prepare where you feel comfortable going into a Friday night.
"I think we have done that. It's been in bits and pieces throughout, since August when we were able to get back out and do some things. We feel good about all of it. We're generally healthy and the kids have a lot of enthusiasm, so we're ready to roll."
If nothing else, Clark is ready to just play football. He knows his kids are as well.
He's also ready to accept that things might not be fine-tuned in the early going.
"There will be a general level of sloppiness, you saw it early in the basketball season, teams were out of sync. I'm sure that will be the case with football, but we'll try to stay simple and do the things we can do well and try to have success.
"Regardless of all the other circumstances - and it's always been like this - when they snap the football and the whistle is blown, everything feels the same."
Spyder Dann covers prep and college sports for the Southern Illinois LOCAL Media Group. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.
ELDORADO FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
Date Opponent Time
3-19 SESSER 7 PM
3-26 at Hamilton Co. 7 PM
4-3 at Carmi 1 PM
4-10 CHRISTOPHER 1 PM
4-16 at Edwards Co. 7 PM
4-23 at Fairfield 7 PM