A new era dawns for Scots

As Macalester embarks on its new experiment in building competitive football, we bring you a weekly look inside the program from one of the 37 student-athletes in uniform.

By Adam Johnson 
(posted Sept. 9, 2002)

We at Macalester have been on a ten-month emotional roller coaster — November, relief; August, excitement; September, disappointment.

From the announcement in November that we would be the 109th team to wear the orange and blue, to the agony of another close defeat in week one of September, this team has experienced a lot in the last ten months and has gotten closer and stronger in the process. We sat together in the lecture hall last November hopeful that President McPherson would announce a decision to keep football. We were relieved and erupted in an ovation when the announcement was made, yet questioned the schedule to play lesser teams.

It's hard for many of us who have come from winning high school programs, from all over the country, to admit that we are overmatched or overpowered. Nonetheless, we accepted the lesser schedule and set a team goal of 10-0 to prove to ourselves and everyone else that we belong in the MIAC and we want to be back as soon as possible.

We reported to camp on August 18 full of excitement and anticipation. We had 11 first-years, our quarterback Adam Denny was returning after missing a year, two of our captains, offensive linemen Eric Chapin and Clark Wohlferd, were returning from injuries, as was I. Our defense was returning with many four-year starters and our first team meeting showed the coaches had changed as well. This team would be disciplined — mistakes in practice meant extra sprints. Not reaching team goals for weights and speed, set in the spring, meant you were a member of "breakfast club" — a weight-lifting and running group that met at 7 a.m.

Two-a-days went well with a quality intra-team scrimmage and a very competitive scrimmage against St. Olaf — the toughest MIAC team still on our schedule that we will use as a benchmark for returning to the conference. We were anxious and excited to play the first game of our new national independent schedule. Luckily, it was a schedule that will bring teams from four different states to Macalester Stadium, while we will fly to Oregon in October.

Photo by Mike Ekern Defensive lineman Justin Hagen demonstrates the hot and disappointing aspects of Macalester's season opener.

Our first game against Beloit can be summed up with a number of words: hot, exciting, fun and disappointing. The temperature at game time felt like 100 and with the two days of rain on Thursday and Friday it was a sauna. It was exciting to come out to the roar of the MAC faithful — a sound we thought we might not hear again during last October.

Battling another team, picking off passes, recovering fumbles, scoring touchdowns and getting first downs made it a fun afternoon. Yet, ultimately it was disappointing as our defense gave up two quick touchdowns in the first quarter, our quarterback threw four interceptions, receivers dropped balls and we came out six points short of reaching the first step of our team's ultimate goal — going 10-0. Nevertheless, I know my teammates and I will channel our emotions, our anger of defeat, and come out next week and make the first step towards our new goal: 9-1.

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