The Our Lady of Mercy football team is on their third head coach in the last three years, which means the team’s upperclassmen, despite having good coaches, haven’t had any consistency during their football careers. Bryan Pinabell, a former defensive coordinator at St. Pius, is looking to establish a winning tradition at the school and the upperclassmen will play a large part in helping him achieve that goal.

Pinabell, who has been coaching football for 15 years, is excited about his first head coaching job and that excitement has translated into a number of students joining the team in recent weeks. The team now has over 40 players on the squad, which is something that will help the team this year and even more in years to come. Out of 110 boys at the school, 41 have come out for the team. That number shows that there is excitement at the school about the program.

“There are some great athletes here,” said Pinabell. “We just need to get them going in the right direction.”

The right direction starts with discipline, both in the classroom and on the field. The Bobcats practices are just one of the things that Pinabell is proud of thus far.

“We are really moving out there and a lot of the practice is done with precision,” said Pinabell. Another thing the new coach has stressed to his players since the first day was the necessity to block, tackle and play special teams.

There are nine returning starters from last year’s team including four seniors, Brett Thomas, Brian Bowman, Matt Forbes and Jay Patterson, three juniors, Patrick Silloway, Will Simmons and Gabriel Bradford and two sophomores, Jarrell Bankhead and William Pearl.

Pearl will serve as the team’s quarterback and Pinabell thinks he will get better and better over the course of his career at Mercy. Bankhead and Patterson will both play at the tailback position, while Silloway and Forbes will play as offensive lineman. On the defense, Thomas is one the team’s best linebackers and Patterson will play in the secondary as the strong safety. Sophomore Tommy Kearns will play on the defensive line along side freshman Byron Willams. Williams is 6’1, 255 pounds and Pinabell can see already that Williams has the potential to be a special player.

“Our mantra is, we are ‘establishing the tradition’,”Pinabell said, adding that the goal for the team is to compete every Friday night. One thing that may help the Bobcats as they find themselves this season is that the first part of their schedule, while competitive, isn’t nearly as challenging as in previous years.

Though the team won’t take any opponent too lightly and the region schedule is as tough as always, early matches against state title contenders are not on this year’s schedule.
Pinabell knows what it takes for a football program to be successful and his players will know what it takes as well. They have worked hard in the off-season, participating in a summer lifting program, and they have worked hard on the practice field. Now, it is time to work hard on Friday nights and it is time for that hard work to translate into positive results. It may be a few years before opponents shudder when they see Our Lady of Mercy on their football schedule, but that day is coming.

login to post comments