Same old Riverheads

GREENVILLE

Things don’t change along U.S. 11 just off Interstate 81 when it comes to football.

Volunteers still come out to paint the goal posts the Sunday before practice starts.

They’ll still have the Middlebrook Volunteer Fire Department on hand to set off the sirens when Riverheads scores.

They’ll still pack them in.

And coach Robert Casto, entering his 14th season in charge of the Gladiator football program, is still just as tight lipped as he can be during the preseason.

“You know how I am with the kids,” he said after he’s asked if there are any players fans of the Gladiators should watch for this season. “They haven’t done squat yet.”

Even after last season’s slow start, Casto expects more of the same. It’s a by-product, he said, of the wing-T offense he runs.

“Early in the season you try to get things going,” he said. “And once the wing-T clicks, you start to get things going.”

Nor have the expectations for Riverheads football changed. During his career in Greenville, Casto has led the team to two state titles (2000 and 2006), five district championships (1999, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006), nine regional appearances (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007) and two regional titles.

“We have great expectations for our kids,” he said. “But they have them for themselves.”

Riverheads won two district titles and made two region playoff berths before Casto’s arrival.

Running back/linebacker Cory Sandridge returns with those high expectations for his senior season as do Travis Marcum (RB/DB), Adam Ritter (SE/DE), Ryan Shaw (RB/LB) and Demetrius Younger, the Pride’s 5-foot-10, 220-pound fullback-slash-linebacker.

Dustin Skillman (kicker/punter), Will Fiske (RB/DB), Wesley Jarvis (OG/DE), Paul Fravel (OG/DE), Jeff Taylor (OG/DE), Aaron Rohr (C/DE), Dalton Painter (OT/DT) and Dallas Eye (OG DT) round out the 13 seniors that, just like always, will be fighting for starting jobs.

“I don’t care what they did last year,” Casto said. “This is this year and they have to start over with us. It doesn’t matter if you started every game last year or not, if someone’s better they’re going to play.

“I don’t give free tickets.”

Twenty sophomores and freshmen riddle the Gladiator roster along with 18 juniors. Casto, for the second straight year, said he’s coaching, literally, a group of “kids.”

“We were so young last year,” he says. “And we’re still young this year, but those kids aren’t sophomores now, they’re juniors.”

About the only thing that has changed at Riverheads this season is the bye week. Casto said he’s never had a bye, opting instead to take the first week of the regular season off and playing 10 straight (usually with a playoff game or two). This season, after the Gladiators’ Homecoming game against Greenbrier, W.Va., they’ll have a mid-season bye week before hosting Page County to start the five-game Shenandoah District run.

Of course, Casto is tight lipped and unfazed by the midseason week off and, just like usual, he said he had no gut feeling as to how the season was going to turn out.

“I’m not an optimist, I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist,” he said. “We got a long way to go.

“Everybody wants to win, but not everybody works to win. We want to work to win.”

The real work gets started Friday when the Gladiators host Augusta County rival Stuarts Draft.