The Missouri High School Helmet Project

Lafayette (St Joe) has been having a team camp this week and there have been quite a steady stream of onlookers. There is a street that runs along the side of the practice field and it looks down onto the field. People have been sitting in their cars or standing by the fence watching the kids practice. They have only won 1 game in the last 3 years, but the old coach is gone, and the new coach is drawing quite a bit of attention. Paul Woolard is the new head coach (first head coach job) and has brought alot of well known coaches with him. Coach Tabor gave up his head football coaching @ Bishop LeBlond, and Coach Grossdidier gave up his head girls basketball coaching @ LeBlond to come be assistants for Paul. Paul also has brought witth him from Central High School in St Joe assistants Coach Nassan andCoach Hardy. Enthusiam is extremely high among the student players and their parents. There certainly won't be a shortage of players on the roster this year! Last year they played with 22 kids (and that included 9 freshmen). I'll keep you updated throughout the season. The team is looking very strong on the OL/DL, and the quarterback is looking good to.

A friend of mine was telling me about Lafayette hiring Coach Woolard a couple of months ago...Then I read that Coach Tabor was leaving LeBlond to join him (apparently they are good friends)....Anyway, I have also heard a lot of buzz that there certainly is optimism for the Irish this year...My friend's youngest son is in the 8th grade this year and is going to go to Lafayette next year and Coach Woolard is a big reason...

I would actually like to see the Irish turn things around after being the doormat of the MEC for so long...Maybe this is a year they can at least be respectable....

Good luck to Lafayette this season....

Mike

Well, my son that is the place kicker @ LHS told me that he told Coach Jones that he wasn't going to be on the football team this fall. The coach's response was,...oh, OK. Last year Nick played soccer and football in the fall season and has always played basketball and track every year too. This summer he joined a running club and has gotten 1st place overall in both of the 5k's that he has run in so far. He's been running the 5k in 18:00. Now he has decided that he wants to run XC at LHS this fall and still play soccer but not football. I'm dissapointed becase he's a really good place kicker and consistantly makes 50 yd field goals in practice. The coach told him that he would definately get to do alot of kicking this year (last yr's head coach said he didn't believe in field goals so Nick only kicked off very few times a game. Sometimes he would only kick one time per game if they didn't score. Nick ran in the state 1600m run this year and ran the mile in 4:36 which is his PR. He is running in the 1500m and 3000m at MU tomorrow for the Show Me State Games.

We are in Columbia right now and thought I would let you know that Nick got 1st in the 3000m and 2nd in the 1500m. He had to run them back to back with the 3000m being first. The medals are huge. He's really happy with his times on the 3000m (9:51). His time on the 1500m was 4:38 but he didn't have maybe 10 minutes recovery time between races.

That's great...Congrats...

I was talking to one of the young men that plays for the Irish football team (not one of my kids) and he is very excited about the team's chances this year. He says that there are so many players on the team, none of them will be starters on BOTH sides of the ball. Not only do they have more than enough varsity players, but they also will have a full JV squad. They didn't have a JV squad at all last year. I don't know about years before that because we didn't move into St Joe until last summer. It's a good sign when the players are excited about their team. That attitude hasn't been seen for awhile. I can't wait for the first game!

that's not a typical Lafayette team by far

That was a very nice pigskin preview that KQ2 did this week about the Irish. My son is #50 in the video. Please tell the ones you know at KQ2 that the parents of the Irish football team really appreciate the effort they are making toward Lafayette. We hope the great coverage doesn't end with just football.

I wonder how many of the area high schools are having 2-a-days in this heat. The St Joseph School District told their schools that no one can practice after noon, and as a parent, I really appreciate that. I don't think it will negatively affect our teams. The superintendent is a good friend of mine and I think she is doing a great job.

For those sports whose regular practice doesn't start til 5:30p are still allowed to have practice since that is their only practice of the day (i.e. soccer), but XC runs at 7am and has dropped their 5pm run for this week.

We (Maur Hill in Atchison) would play Lafayette every year - they were tough. It was a great football program, not to mention their Basketball teams were very good as well.

It would be nice to see the Irish get back on track.
Go Irish!