
{"id":8877,"date":"2010-01-28T10:36:38","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T18:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=8877"},"modified":"2010-01-28T10:36:38","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T18:36:38","slug":"three-years-in-carrboro-high-hits-a-winning-stride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/01\/28\/three-years-in-carrboro-high-hits-a-winning-stride\/","title":{"rendered":"Three years in, Carrboro High hits a winning stride"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Beth Mechum<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\nAn atmosphere of success has taken hold on the Carrboro High School campus.<\/p>\n<p>The field hockey team now plays more competitively with both East Chapel Hill and Chapel Hill, the women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s golf team helped start a high school women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s golf league in the area and the men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s soccer team beat conference rival Cedar Ridge for the first time ever.<\/p>\n<p>Students, teachers and parents walked the halls and fields of Carrboro High School three years ago not knowing what was ahead. It was tough going in the beginning, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still no easy ride. But with cohesion, camaraderie and a sense of community from all, things just keep getting better.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Three years ago, in the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first year of operation, the football team couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as much as sniff a win, even when at home on its brand-new field. Fortunately, there weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t many people in the stands to witness those weekly beatings. A full women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s golf team was just a pie-in-the-sky dream for the few golf enthusiasts on campus. There was no senior leadership on any team, because there were no seniors. Kids were thrust into starting positions in sports they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never before played because they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the opportunity to earn their reps on junior varsity teams, because, well, there were none of those either.<\/p>\n<p>Three years later, and while it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not yet time to consider the Jaguars as being all-around championship caliber, one title has now been brought home \u00e2\u20ac\u201c congratulations to the Carrboro High women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s state 2A cross country champs! \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and as the 2009 fall sports season proved, the Jags are, overall, on their way up, and right now you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to squint to see the ceiling. A number of Carrboro Jaguar teams are building from a solid foundation with a ton of talent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A new beginning<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nWhile most students, many of whom were former Chapel Hill or East Chapel Hill High attendees, entering the doors of Carrboro High School three years ago worried about finding a new spot at lunch, buttering up another set of teachers and making enough friends to survive their remaining high school years, many were faced with additional uncertainties.<\/p>\n<p>What will my new soccer coach be like? Will I make the football team? Can the field hockey team compete against the likes of the already-established powerhouses across town?<\/p>\n<p>Being a student-athlete is at the core of many kids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 high school dreams, and switching teams midway through can be tough. In sports such as field hockey or lacrosse, where Chapel Hill and East Chapel Hill Highs reign supreme, it was, for the new Carrboro student-athletes, akin to leaving the perpetual champion New York Yankees for the ever-rebuilding Pittsburgh Pirates midway through a season. <\/p>\n<p>Sure, it can be seen as a challenge to overcome; but for teenagers, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more likely to be seen as an obstacle.<\/p>\n<p>Head football coach Jason Tudryn was there from the beginning and offered some perspective on the challenges of his first three years of coaching.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have to learn how to fail in life in order to be successful, and I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard for kids nowadays to put themselves in an environment where they won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be successful,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to learn from those mistakes, and our guys have done a great job of resilience, bouncing back from setbacks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>After two years at the bottom of the standings, the 2009 season was a breakout year for the Jags. The team won its first home game, beat cross-town rival East Chapel Hill for the first time, won its first conference game and made the 2A playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Quarterback Derek Bryant also was there from the beginning, starting at quarterback as a freshman \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a great opportunity, but a potentially daunting task. Bryant was competing against defenses that had been training and lifting weights at the high school level for years. He spent more time on the ground than celebrating in the end zone.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153As juniors, a bunch of our starters remember getting beat pretty badly almost every game as freshmen,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bryant said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That helps now when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re preparing for those same teams; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motivation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Bryant and his teammates went through the losses, the ridicule from classmates and their own second thoughts. It brought them closer and forged a friendship that allowed them to overcome the odds of succeeding any time soon.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We definitely struggled together,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bryant said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what makes it so fun now, the fact that we all struggled together. And now that we are successful, it makes it sweeter.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They are a brotherhood because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen more adverse situations than a lot of kids their age, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done it together,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tudryn added. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve shared success and failure, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a beautiful thing to witness. The fact that they shared these things together makes lasting memories; there is definitely that cohesion with the guys.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Learning curve<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nCohesion may well be the primary reason the athletic landscape at Carrboro is looking brighter these days, but there are other reasons, most more tangible than that.<\/p>\n<p>Last year was the first that most teams had enough skilled players to form junior varsity squads. Because there were no seniors the first semester, the school population was low, as was the interest in being part of a struggling sports team.<\/p>\n<p>JV teams prepare student-athletes for varsity play, teach them a team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scheme or strategies in less stressful conditions and let freshmen and sophomores mature both mentally and physically before taking on more-seasoned opponents.<\/p>\n<p>That was a luxury Carrboro didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Overall, the point of a JV team is you want to develop kids, not just as soccer players or lacrosse or whatever, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important that kids understand what it means to be a student-athlete,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Carrboro men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s soccer head coach James Mundia said. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a learning curve that comes with being a student-athlete, not just with the sport itself, but also with things like how do you handle having practice and having a full course load of homework every night,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Having a JV team is not only a big help to the coaches, but the players as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153As far as experience-wise, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really helped, having guys playing and getting game time in,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bryant said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I feel like the JV definitely helps them. And it helps varsity, because JV really plays hard in practice, because they want to make us look bad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Plus, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just the extra playing time; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the playing time in the same system for a number of years. JV gives players an opportunity to ease into the rigors of learning to play a sport under a certain system and certain playing style.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Coming along before JV, it was a little more trial-and-error. Now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a situation where we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve established rules, and a routine. So now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a matter of getting everyone on board and saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThis is how we do things,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mundia said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Carrboro sports: here and now<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nAnd that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really what it comes down to, with the whole Carrboro community getting behind a school and a sports program.<\/p>\n<p>Tudryn said he remembers a time when the stands were empty, and his athletes had to feed off their own voices and motivation.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Now, you come to a Friday night football game and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great atmosphere,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tudryn said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I go to Weaver Street Market the week after and some random person I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never met in a Carr-boro football shirt says, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHey, coach; congrats.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Mundia remembers when his players used to wear East Chapel Hill High T-shirts to practice and he had to remind them that Carrboro sports are what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s here and now.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a beautiful place, because everyone at Carrboro High School \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is really positive, everyone is really pulling for each other,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tudryn said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Their peers are behind them, the community is behind them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beth Mechum Staff Writer An atmosphere of success has taken hold on the Carrboro High School campus. The field hockey team now plays more competitively with both East Chapel Hill and Chapel Hill, the women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s golf team helped start a high school women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s golf league in the area and the men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s soccer team beat conference&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools","category-sports","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8877"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8879,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877\/revisions\/8879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}