Published: July 03, 2008 12:26 pm      

Ada coaches get first look at future Cougar players

Bryce Smith is exactly what first-year Ada High football coach Matt Weber and his staff were looking for when they scheduled this week’s football clinic for third through sixth-graders at the school’s shiny new Dunham Multipurpose Facility.

At age 9, Bryce — who will be in the fourth grade at Lone Grove Elementary when the new school year starts next month — already has big plans where his athletic career is concerned. And he might just have the talent to see those plans through.

“He’s a good little athlete,” said Weber, who recalled Bryce from the 20 or so kids who attended the three-day clinic (which wraps up this afternoon). “Besides being able to run and catch, he’s also very attentive. He takes coaching really well, and that’s impressive for a kid his age. He’s a good one.”

Bryce, whose mother, Christie, lives in Ada and whose father, Kelley, lives in Lone Grove, might cause a family feud five or so years from now when he finally begins his high school career.

“He’s an athlete,” Christie Smith said during a break at Tuesday’s opening day of the clinic. “If I have anything to do with it, he’ll be an Ada Cougar.”

Mom should know an athlete when she sees one. A two-sport high school star at Latta in the early 1990s, Christie was a guard on Shelby Morgan’s last 6-on-6 basketball squad in 1992, and she said her son’s talents extend to a lot more than football.

“He’s a pitcher and shortstop on his (Lone Grove YMCA) baseball team, and he’s really awesome at basketball,” she said of Bryce, who also runs track and plays soccer — usually with and against boys who are a year older than he is. “When he plays shortstop, not much gets by him, and he’s the base-stealingest thing you’ve ever seen.”

Bryce said he likes football best, however, and he and his mother — who works at Flex-n-Gate in Ada — attend an average of four University of Oklahoma football games each season. As a birthday present, Christie took Bryce to the OU-Missouri game last October, and they also attended OU’s 69-3 rout of Texas at the Cotton Bowl a few years back.

“There’s a guy I work with who has season tickets, and he gives me first option to buy them if he’s not going to the game,” she said.

Speed, not size, figures to be Bryce’s biggest asset in any sport he plays, and he said he hopes to be a professional athlete when he gets older.

“I think I’m fast, so I could be a wide receiver or a running back — I’ll just have to see which one I’m best at,” he said. “I like football best, because it’s the most challenging and it gives you the most exercise. I can’t wait for football season (he plays in a flag football league in Lone Grove).

“I want to play football or baseball (professionally),” he said. “If I don’t make that, I want to be an eye doctor.”

And being a typical fourth grader, Bryce — who won the long jump and 50 and 75-yard dash while competing against the other third graders in Lone Grove at an end-of-year track meet this spring — said the best part of school is, of course, recess.

“The work part isn’t fun, but recess with my friends is fun,” he said.

Weber, who came from Marlow this spring to take over the storied Ada football program, said he was pleased with the first two days of this week’s clinic, explaining that the relatively small turnout wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Our numbers weren’t high, but that’s really good for the kids, because it gives them more reps,” he said. “The good thing is that they get to know us as coaches, and you want young kids to look forward to being Ada Cougars one day.

“There are some good athletes (at the clinic), he added. “We let every kid play every position, because kids change over the years. We want to make sure every kid gets to work at every position.”

Weber said the new indoor facility where the clinic is being held has made the week even more enjoyable.

“It’s an unbelievable facility,” he said. “It’s a lot cooler in there than it is outside.

“It will be good for all our activities,” Weber added. “There aren’t many kids on our campus who can’t find some use for that facility.”

Weber inherited the remnants of an Ada football squad that finished 5-5 last fall and missed the playoffs to snap a streak of postseason appearances by the Cougars stretching back almost a quarter-century. He said he liked a lot of what he saw during his first spring practice at AHS and said he likes being at a school where winning is a habit.

“It’s hard to tell right now how good we’ll be — we got to see a little in spring ball, and right now we’re just doing strength and speed (in the offseason workout program),” Weber explained. “The kids’ attitudes are really good. They WANT to be good, and I think they’ll be really receptive to doing whatever it takes to help us win.

“I would rather have high expectations,” he added. “That also means the community and the school will be behind you, and they’ll give you whatever you need to help you win. Any time you have 19 gold balls, expectations are going to be high.”

And, he said, continuing the annual summer football clinic for Cougars-to-be could play a role in Ada’s continued success.

“We’ll talk as a staff afterwards and see if it’s something we want to continue to do,” Weber noted. “Next year, we’ll be able to get out to the elementary schools and advertise it. This probably wasn’t the best week to have it, either, being just before the July 4 weekend.”

Ada football players are due to report for preseason practice on Tuesday, Aug. 12, and the Cougars have a couple of challenging scrimmages — at Pauls Valley on Aug. 22 and at home against traditional Class 5A power Guthrie six days later — in advance of their 2008 season opener on Friday, Sept. 5 against rival Ardmore, under the direction of former Cougar great Larry McBroom.