‘Old Shoe’ Tradition Carries On In New Venue
The 'Old Shoe' game was won by the White Team at the August 20th scrimmage.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – The tradition of the ‘Old Shoe’ game signaled the beginning of the 2011 Oskaloosa Football Season. This was the first time that the players ever stepped foot on the new turf. The Oskaloosa 9th Grade and JV Teams were first to play.
Mark Schilb, Oskaloosa High School Head Football Coach, spoke after the scrimmage. “Had a good time. We had our teams divided up pretty evenly. Wanted to see them in a competitive atmosphere, we did that.” Coach Schilb continued on by saying, “Overall we got a lot of work to do on both sides of the ball. Kids play hard, we got a lot of good speed out here. I like what I see.”
Schilb says the two things his team talks about are effort and attitude. “I saw great effort, good attitudes tonight.”
“For one, we got to make some personnel decisions. We have, right now, everybody playing 2 positions, both on offense and defensive positions. So that gives us a lot of depth and competition, that’s what I want. I don’t want our guys to be comfortable that they have a position, I want them to be pushing each other in practice, making it competitive.”
Coach Schilb says they need to continue to work on the timing of their backs eliminating mistakes. “We’d have two or three good plays and then we’d drop the ball. We can’t do that.”
Schilb says they will get better. “It’s a start, it’s something to build on,” Schilb said.
“I think we’ve got some really good running backs. You saw Adam Rowley tonight, he’s very strong and powerful. His back-up right now is very very good. Andrew Landgrebe, he’s a sophomore. You know people talk about his speed but, like on the 2 point conversion, I saw him square shoulder pads and run through two people,” Schilb said of his running back spots. “We’re two and three deep at our running back spots, and I see a lot of talent there.”
The obvious question was to find out what he thought of playing at the new stadium. “It’s awesome, it’s so awesome to call this place home. Our football team represents a lot of people. It’s on its way up to being bigger and better; next week it’s for real. Our kids were almost in awe when they got off the bus, and the lights came on and it was pretty awesome just to be out here.” Schilb said in finishing up his time talking with us.
Come watch the Oskaloosa Indians take on the Grinnell Tigers next Friday night. Game time is set at 7:30 p.m. at the new Community Stadium located within the Lacey Complex.
