GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — The Grand Rapids Christian football team officially began football practice on Monday morning at Eagles Stadium. The defending division 3 state champions know they will be the hunted this season. “Everybody has high expectations for us and we have a target on our back, everybody is talking about Grand Rapids Christian, that is a new thing for us” senior linebacker Ethan Badger said.
Head coach Don Fellows begins his 4th season at the helm of the Eagles program, and he knows his team is very talented but says they are not trying to get ahead of themselves. “You can’t always control what ends up happening, I don’t want that pressure on those kids (winning a state championship), I think our expectations are to get better each week but we would be a little disappointed if we didn’t make a good run at it” Fellows said.
Fellows said that transfer Tyler Sigler is competing with junior Patrick Hall for the quarterback position and that he doesn’t expect to name a starter to late next week.
The defense is where there is potential for a lot of improvement. Not only do they return 6 starters, but they also get junior linebacker Jack Bates back after he missed all of 2012. “Our defense was very young last year and we did lose seniors, but we have guys who can step up and play those positions and we are a year older now, we’ve dealt with the defense we put it in, now we’ve got it down” Badger said.
That defense will get a major test in week 1 when they play defending division 4 state champion South Christian.
