WESTTOWN — It’s Monday afternoon, three days after West Chester Rustin’s 20th regular season concluded, and the Golden Knights gather on their practice field.
Having stretched on their own, the starting offense aligns for offensive coordinator, Mitch Hoffman, while Rustin’s head coach, Mike St. Clair, lines up the scout defense.
There isn’t much noise in the 30-minute walk-through, aside of the sounds of cleats kicking up dirt or St. Clair emphatically correcting a scout teamer who didn’t stunt the correct way.Rustin has been doing things this way since it opened in 2006, and though the names and faces change every year, those same golden helmets atop those same navy jerseys, running those same sweeps, powers and traps makes Rustin of then and now, hardly indistinguishable.
That consistency in scheme, coaching and athlete is arguably the biggest reason the youngest football program in Chester County owns the most wins (177) in Chester County since its inception.
“I think (players) come in knowing what it’s all about,” St. Clair said of his program. “Like Stevie Hess, one of the first running backs we ever had, you know, we get another, Steve Hess every year. We get another Anthony Verderame or another Chase Hoyt. They just keep coming through, maybe not as big or as fast, but, the same type of players. Just blue collar kids that get to work.”
If you’ve been around Ches-Mont League football, you can close your eyes and picture Rustin’s 5-foot-10, 205-pound guards pulling on buck sweep, or a 6-foot-1, 225-pound defensive end setting the edge while a 5-foot-9, 185-pound linebacker stuffs a play in the backfield.
The Rustin football program has not been built on the backs of giants, but rather class after class that understands the job description and fights for everything it can get.
Make no mistake, it’d be hard to find a better quartet of skill players from any program the last 2 decades like Rustin can boast. Rondell White, Terry Loper, Dayshawn Jacobs and Chase Hatton would’ve excelled anywhere. It’s not a coincidence, some of the best Golden Knight teams have come where those stars and those “Rustin kids” were all paddling in the same direction.
“We do get some good kids, but there’s there’s really good kids around here who choose not to come here and go to private schools, that would have been part on some really good teams,” St. Clair said. “I just think it’s a combination of, we get really good kids coming up from Stetson (Middle School), and they buy into the program. The good thing about the system is there’s no one star. When you have the Wing-T, three kids are touching the ball.”
The Wing-T offense has been the staple of Rustin’s offense all along, and while it’s been adjusted due to running back skill and depth from time to time, the onus since day one was to get downhill backs following pulling guards chew up yardage, as well as clock.
A Rustin back has reached 1,000 rushing yards 17 times in these 20 years. Loper and White’s 2,000-yard campaigns match as many times as a Rustin quarterback has thrown for 1,000 yards in a season.
White, Loper, Jacobs and Hatton all eclipsed 4,000 career rush yards, with Loper holding the record (4,758). White put up over 1,900 yards in 11 games in 2009, and Hess, Nick Madonna and Hatton all surpassed 1,600 in a season.
“When I started coaching at West Chester East, Joe Carroll was a (longtime Strath Haven coach) Kevin Clancy fan, and he was Wing-T,” St. Clair said. “So, when I came here, I said, ‘I’m going to do Wing-T.’ (Clancy) was the winningest coach in Pennsylvania Football history, so, if he sticks by the wing-T and wins, it’s a pretty good system. I just figured, run it good, run it as best you can, and if they stop you, they stop you. If they don’t, well, you keep going with it.”
The core of the coaching staff has been with St. Clair much of his tenure. Offensive and defensive line coaches, John Timko and Mike Mohring, respectively, got there in 2008. Receiver and defensive back coach, Shaz Brown started in 2010 and Hoffman came aboard in 2012.
Timko and Mohring, have had their fair share of studs, as well. Verdarame, Hoyt, Sean Steinmetz, Tommy Tomlin, Isaiah Spriggs, Sean Hopkins, among many others set the standard for line play and those others who fill in find a system geared to help them succeed.
“(The Wing-T) really relies on the line and how we perform up front, not just our backfield,” Rustin senior guard, Andrew Shallo said. “I think running this offense really cements the line together. We do pass a little bit, but it’s mainly a run heavy team. … We rep the same plays every year and the coaches do a very good job of building you up from freshman year to senior year.”
Since 2010, Rustin has averaged 243.9 rush yards, 64.5 pass yards and 308.4 total yards per game, while outscoring teams, 30.2-14.5, on average.
As if Rustin hadn’t found enough favor in the running back department, St. Clair convinced Anthony Nash to give football a try in 2010 and he went on to catch 82 passes for 1,670 yards and 22 TDs in two seasons before playing at Duke University and spending a training camp with the Denver Broncos.
Rustin has gone 177-58 the last two decades, and is tied with Coatesville with a county-high 26 postseason wins in that span. Rustin’s .753 winning percentage is also fourth highest in Pennsylvania history, according to pafootballnews.com.
It didn’t start off like that, right away, but it also didn’t take very long for Rustin to find success. The Knights went 3-8 in 2006, with no seniors on the team. By 2008 they were District 1-3A champions.
“That first year, every win was like winning the Super Bowl,” St. Clair said. “We had a team without any seniors playing some big teams. We were just hanging in there and battling and learning every week. After that season was over, when I looked at the talent we had, I thought it was going to be something special for the next couple of years with those guys that were around.”
After winning six playoff games from 2008-2010, Rustin Rustin won just one playoff game from 2011-2016, while taking on some of the top Class 4A (now 6A) schools as one of the smaller programs at that level.
When the PIAA switched to six classes in 2016, Rustin landed in Class 5A and has been to five district championship games since. Last fall, the Knights finally broke through, claiming their second district title with a dominant run through the 5A bracket.
“It was great to be a part of,” said Andrew Shallo, whose older brother, John Shallo, played on two district runner-up teams. “It was a lot of hard work to get there, but I think we’re going to be right back there this year.”
Rustin’s motto is: “Tradition never graduates.” After 33 seniors moved on from that district championship roster last June, many expected the Knights to at least take a step or two back.
Instead, they’re two one-point losses away from being undefeated.Friday, the No. 3 Knights, in their 18th postseason, will host No. 14 West Chester Henderson in the first round, a week after defeating the Warriors, 36-0. Rustin is 7-1 in the playoffs against Ches-Mont foes, all time.
The Knights won their 10th division title this fall, relying on a defense that hasn’t given up a point in 13 quarters and a trio of “Rustin” backs — Will Garner, Jimmy Boland and Colin Baldesari — who’ve combined for 2,195 yards and 25 TDs on the ground.
“It feels good showing that since Rustin’s been a team, we’ve always been good,” Boland said. “And we’re not letting them down, we’re showing them the best we have. … We have the best coaches around. They teach us everything and they’re hard on us.”
A lot about football has changed the last 20 years. Pads have shrunk, tight ends and fullbacks have been traded in for slot receivers and spread offenses. Those big neck rolls and clunky forearm pads have been shed by defenders, looking to play more horizontally.
Rustin, though, has stayed the course by being great at a few things and by buying in to a selfless style, all while being fueled by a burning passion St. Clair has maintained throughout.
“What I envisioned was just trying to get a program off the ground,” St. Clair said. “Established in tradition, and just playing tough every year. That was our main goal, starting.”Some things never change.
Source: Berkshire mont
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