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August 28, 2014 – Meeting Roundup – High School Football Coaches

This week we are having one of our most popular programs of the year—the four county high school football coaches. They will give us their annual assessment of their teams and their expectations.

Despite what Pam Wagoner and Vickie Elliott would have you believe the flagship school of Berkeley County is, when it comes to football Martinsburg High School is the ONLY school that deserves that connotation. No other school in state history has won the class AAA football championship four years in a row. To put it into perspective, no one on this year’s team knows what it’s like NOT to be the state champion. The only question is, can Dave Walker’s team make it five in a row? Rumor has it that he’s got the makings of a pretty good team this year. Will any West Virginia team be able to beat it? None have been able to in a very long time. The local schools and the state schools will be gunning for them, but that’s been the case the past four years and it doesn’t seem to faze them.

Hedgesville has a new coach. Rich Thomaselli is gone and has been replaced by Aaron Fiddler. Fiddler is the son of former Moorefield and Glenville State coach Alan Fiddler who is currently the head coach at Patrick Henry High School in Virginia. Aaron takes over a program that went 4-6 last year and has had problems getting athletes to turn out to play football. He will be telling us how he hopes to turn this once-proud team around and be more competitive.

Brian Thomas is back for his second year at Musselman. He broke even last year with a 5-5 record and certainly hopes to improve on that. Musselman, too, has a long tradition of playing outstanding football, having won championships as an AA school and having some good years as a AAA school. Their problems have been the same as Hedgesville. There are too many other activities, such as soccer, that dilute the pool of football players. Can south Berkeley County rebound? Brian will tell us his take on the chances of Musselman.

And finally there is our newest school. Last year, under Coach Derek Munson, they only won one game. However, that wasn’t bad considering there were no seniors on the team and many potential players chose to stay at Hedgesville and Martinsburg. This year there will be a senior class that is hoping to reverse last year’s record.

One sad note: Bob Kamensky, who guided the Bulldogs to their first 10-0 football season and received the Morning Herald Coach of the Year in 1976, passed away on Friday. Doug Arndt played for Bob and was on that team.

The Marshall Legacy Institute

Perry Baltimore of The Marshall Legacy Institute spoke to us last week about his organization’s important work ridding the world of land mines. The Institute, named for Gen. George C. Marshall, trains dogs to sniff out land mines. Right now there are 197 dogs in 11 countries providing this service. Each dog costs approximately $20,000 to train for this task. No dogs have ever been killed by the land mines. This is because their nose is out in front of their feet, so they detect the mine before they can step on it.
The Institute also helps children who have been injured by land mines. It provides prostheses for them and counseling. Keeping in mind that these children are still growing, they provide new prostheses for them as they grow.

Cogwheels

Answer to last week’s question:

The public relations objectives of a club are to make the aims and accomplishments of Rotary better known to the end that a favorable atmosphere may be created in the community in which the club and individual Rotarians may effectively fulfill the Objects of Rotary.

This week’s question:

What is the attitude of Rotary relative to a club engaging in a Community Service activity that is already well-handled by some other organization?