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Sports

Powers Seizes Control of Suffield/Windsor Locks/East Granby Football

The co-op football team opens Sept. 16 against Housatonic/Wamogo in its first game after the Pat Scelza era.

It’s not easy replacing an icon. Marty Powers will get a chance to see how tricky it can be. But so far, he is pleased with the challenge.

Powers became the second coach in the history of the Windsor Locks/Suffield/East Granby co-op football team last month. Pat Scelza, who started the Windsor Locks program in 1970, retired after 38 seasons as varsity coach in November 2010. Scelza is admired throughout town and is regarded as the father of Windsor Locks football.

A replacement for Scelza was named in April but that coach walked away from the job a few weeks later, said Jim O’Brien, the Windsor Locks High School athletic director. Powers, a long-time assistant coach and resident of Tolland, was not on the sidelines last fall.

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The Raiders open the 2011 season on Sept. 16 at Housatonic/Wamogo in a Pequot League Uncas Division game at 7 p.m. Powers, 52, is no stranger to the Pequot Uncas. He was head coach for Stafford/East Windsor in 2008 and 2009. Before that he was head coach of Tolland from 2001-2005. In 2006-07, he was an assistant at E.O. Smith in Mansfield.

Powers, a social studies teacher at Bulkeley High School in Hartford, has been the Bulkeley softball coach for the past two years. He took last year off from coaching because of the commute from Tolland to Hartford to Stafford back to Tolland.

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The transition season for Powers has not been intimidating thus far. “We’re ahead of schedule,” said Powers, a 1977 graduate of Rockville High School, whose team played against Windsor Locks, then coached by Scelza. “You can tell the team has been well coached in the past. They are strong in the fundamentals. The team had a lot of injuries last year and was quite young.

“We’ve got to build our numbers [of players]. You do that by keeping practices short and getting a lot of players involved. I want to play 22 kids. I’d rather not have two-way starters,” Powers said.

Although Stafford/East Windsor went 3-7 in both seasons under Powers, O’Brien was impressed with how Powers started to move the team in a positive direction and began to change around the attitude of the players. The strides taken by Stafford/East Windsor under Powers and his enthusiasm were the decisive factors in O’Brien and other school administrators at Windsor Locks, Suffield and East Granby high schools deciding to offer him the job.

The Raiders, who train at Windsor Locks High, were 2-8 in 2010 and O’Brien is looking for Powers to work that magic again.

“If you speak with him for more than a minute,” O’Brien said, “the first thing you notice is his energy and enthusiasm. He exudes energy and enthusiasm, and it is contagious. I watched him fix [Stafford/East Windsor] for a couple of years after 0-for seasons. I saw him inject a lot of energy and life into that program."

“He has big shoes to fill.”

Powers has been coaching 56 players through the preseason and is hopeful 50 players will stick throughout the season. The Raiders will use a 4-3 defensive alignment, the only formation Powers has used as head coach. On offense, expect to see a double-wing, a run-oriented attack that requires quite a few running backs to alternate in.

“Everyone gets to touch the ball,” Powers said. “We get a lot of players in rotation. We use a lot of pulling and trapping. With five or six [backs] in rotation, it gives them a rest, it keeps them healthy and keeps them interested.”

Powers has brought an assistant coach in, adding to the staff of two coaches who worked with Scelza previously. Powers has brought in Jason Qua, a social studies teacher at Windsor Locks High. He joins Billy King, a long-time assistant for Scelza, and Nate Reynolds, who begins his fourth year with the Raiders.

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