Drury, St. Joe Players Open First Camp Together

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- The new era of Drury High School football officially got under way on Monday morning, but the transition started last spring.

 

That is when then-junior Kirby Bryce started chatting with one of his future teammates and former adversaries.

 

"Right around when my dad [Drury coach Bill Bryce] told me we were going to be co-oping with St. Joe, it was baseball season and right around the time when we played them," Kirby recalled on Monday. "After that game, me and him stuck around for a minute and chatted with Nate Stump.

 

"I started connecting first hand with him. He and I became friends. That's how captain's practices happened."

 

And that is why, even before Monday's official start of high school football practice, Bryce and his Blue Devil teammates made weekly trips to Pittsfield all summer to hold informal workouts with the St. Joseph Central High School students who would be joining Drury in a cooperative arrangement this fall.

 

The co-op, which first was made public in April, is a way of preserving football playing opportunities at the Pittsfield Catholic high school.

 

On Monday morning, seven St. Joe students reported for practice along with 24 players from Drury.

 

Seven may not sound like a big number, but for a program like Drury, it can make a big difference.

 

"I was actually really excited to hear about the co-op," Drury senior Kyle Clairmont said. "Our numbers were dwindling the last couple of years. It was good to get extra people who were motivated to help out and play.

 

"It's exciting to get the numbers up and get good players."

 

Bill Bryce agreed.

 

"It really is giving us an opportunity to have some competition at some positions," he said.

 

In fact, while St. Joe's football program was in jeopardy last year, it could just as easily be Drury's that needs the cooperative down the road.

 

"It's an unfortunate situation we're in," Bill Bryce said. "I think numbers are down county wide, but especially at Drury. We could be in trouble. Right now, if we don't get some younger kids to come out and play, we will be in trouble."

 

Fourteen of the 31 students on the combined Drury-St. Joe roster are seniors, Bryce said. That concerns the sixth-year coach for the future of the Blue Devils' program.

 

In the near term, this year's edition of the Blue Devils is anxious to show what the combination of the two programs can do on the field.

 

"We definitely think we can go out and make a statement and show Berkshire county we're here as a program to compete with some of the schools who have had success recently: Wahconah, Hoosac Valley and Mount Greylock," Stump said.  "We want to show we're up there with them."

 

Stump said the St. Joe football players are used to the idea of a coopaertive. Last fall, the school had a football co-op with Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School in Adams.

 

Of course, last year, St. Joseph was the host.

 

Stump admitted it's a little different this time around.

 

"I was definitely a little upset," he said about his reaction to the news the Crusader program would not continue on its own. "It's my senior year. ... Freshman and sophomore year we were really good. My sophomore year, we went to the [Western Mass] semi-finals.

 

"That was tough. There's a lot of tradition at St. Joe. Having to break that was tough. We just got brand new jerseys. Now they're just sitting there.

 

"My brother went to St. Joe, and they won a Super Bowl there."

 

Now Stump gets to help reestablish another tradition -- at another high school.

 

Fortunately, he said, the Blue Devils have made the Crusaders feel at home.

 

"Coach Bryce has been really good about making sure all the messages he sends to his players he also sends down to us," he said. "They're a good bunch of guys up there --really welcome. I just went out to lunch with Kirby and Justice [Marable] and Justin [Girard]."

 

Even the trip north for practice is not as much of a hassle as one might think.

 

"A couple of us kids have our licenses, so it's not too big a challenge," Stump said. "A lot of parents are willing to drive up to make it work."