Strength Finder: Phillips, Ellwood return to winning ways

By Joe Simon

New Castle News

Midway through Don Phillips’ first season as Ellwood City Lincoln High football coach, a player approached one of his assistants.

“Where are you coaching next year?,” the kid asked.

“What are you talking about?,” the coach responded.

“Well, everyone who comes here and coaches, they coach us and leave,” he said.

The assistant told Phillips what happened, so Phillips, the Wolverines’ third head coach in as many years, called the sophomore into his office to talk about what he said. The kid, whose name Phillips would not divulge, told his coach exactly what he told his assistant, and Phillips was ready with a response.

“Here’s the problem you have right now: I’m not leaving,” Phillips recalled saying. “You’re stuck with me. You know why? Because it’s personal now. We’re 0-9. I can’t walk out of here being 0-9. That’s not going to happen.

“He just looked at me and said, ‘Good.’ ”

Good now looks like a serious understatement.

Phillips has transformed Ellwood City from the joke of the Midwestern Athletic Conference, a program that was enduring a 31-game losing streak when he took over, to one of the elite teams in the conference. And he’s done so in just four years. The Wolverines were winless his first season, went 1-8 in his second year, and then made a drastic leap to 6-4 in 2010, including a playoff berth.

Many followers expected a dropoff following the shocking turnaround season. After all, Ellwood lost 13 seniors, including four of the five starters on the offensive line, star quarterback Gino Ceriani and most of the backfield. And this wasn’t just any class that graduated. This was the class that came to Phillips as sophomores and vowed to be the team that would change the losing ways. Their departure appeared to signify a down year was forthcoming.

Not so fast.

The Wolverines are returning to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since a three-year stretch in 1985, ’86, ’87, when Ellwood was one of the elite programs in county. The Wolverines (5-2 in the conference, 6-2 overall) are back after a shocking 31-28 victory over Beaver Falls last Friday night, their first win over the Tigers since 1995. It was a statement game for a team that’s trying to reach the same status as Beaver Falls, Aliquippa and Beaver — the perennial leaders of the conference.

To reach that point, Phillips had to instill a competitive mindset among his players.

“We want to top last year’s team,” senior receiver/defensive back Nick Polka said. “We want to be better than last year. We want to prove that we can play with the best teams even without the linemen from last year.”

Phillips’’ experience, football savvy and unwillingness to accept mediocrity has helped, too.

He was no stranger to rebuilding projects when he came to Ellwood in 2008. He coached at four different schools (Monaca, Rochester, West Allegheny and Center) before arriving in Ellwood. He constructed reclamation projects at nearly every step, especially West Allegheny and Rochester, and left behind winning teams (Rochester was winless when he took over, and two years later was in the WPIAL championship game). The experiences were vital in his rebuilding of the Wolverines’ program.

“You know the obstacles that you’re going to face,” said Phillips of how his previous coaching stops aided him. “And I looked at it as a challenge. When I got hired, even some of the board members said to me, ‘Do you understand what you’re getting into? Do you understand what this program has come to?’ And I said, ‘Yes, it’s been on tough times, but every place I’ve been, when I got there, the circumstances were such that the program wasn’t winning, and we turned it to the point of winning.’ So I looked at them and said, ‘We’ll get this done.’ ”

It wasn’t easy, but he’s on his way. Phillips admitted rebuilding Ellwood was more difficult than anywhere else he’s coached, but the most important part, again, was getting the kids to buy into what he and his coaching staff were preaching. The Wolverines had heard stories of a rebirth from other coaches, so they were reluctant, initially, to accept his philosophies. But after learning the new schemes and listening to what Phillips had to say, they realized just how much he knew about football.

“He’s meant everything,” said senior running back/defensive back Kyle Crawford, one of the top players in Lawrence County. “He’s such a smart coach and knows so much about football it’s almost weird.”

His main strategy is to build his offense and defense around the strengths of his players. Strength is a key word for the Wolverines because a new appreciation for weight lifting, set up by Phillips, has resulted in Ellwood winning numerous power-lifting competitions. Then they added brains to their brawn and listened to Phillips and his staff as they found ways to take advantage of their skills. Phillips said he doesn’t adopt a certain style of play on either side of the ball. He conforms his system to fit the kids.

“And what I will do in the offseason, I’ll look at next year’s team, and I’ll say, ‘What are their strengths?,’ ” Phillips said. “And if it stays within what we’re doing, then we’ll do that. If we need to swing it another way, then we’ll do that.”

The final step was the result, and it didn’t happen right away. The Wolverines were 1-17 in Phillips’ first two seasons. They didn’t break through until last year, when a team — not just the seniors — came together for one common goal.

“It was a collective effort of everything working together,” said Ceriani, Ellwood’s quarterback last year who has since moved on to Mount Union University, where he plays baseball. “Everyone had the same goals and everyone was on the same page. No one was out for their own personal gain. It was one goal.”

(E-mail: j_simon@ncnewsonline.com)