Best season ever with ill head coach
By Cedric Williams
For the St. Louis American
It’s been long said that football is a simple game of blocking, tackling, and overcoming adversity. Sometimes that adversity comes in the form of a quarterback’s missed throw or a linebacker’s missed tackle. Or sometimes it may come as a coach’s bad play call or an official’s questionable penalty call.
But for the Cardinal Ritter College Prep football team, whose head coach Ron Villars took ill early in the season and was unable to coach the team on game days, the adversity was far more serious. Which is why the Lions’ remarkable run to the Class 2 state semifinals made 2005 the finest Ritter football season ever.
“It was a struggle,” said assistant coach James Klevorn, who stepped in for Villars as interim head coach. “But we had a special group of kids who just wouldn’t give up on themselves or each other.”
The Lions had every reason to quit on themselves early in the season. They began the year by losing two of their first three games. Some key players got injured. Then Coach Villars, who’d known of his illness for some time, became too sick to continue. Morale was at an all-time low and it looked like the season was in shambles.
“But that’s when we really pulled together as a team,” Klevorn said. “Our kids just became focused on having a good season. And that’s really when we began to play better.”
Ritter, which has always been known for its great athletes and explosive offense, began a string of defensive performances that ranked the team among the best small-school units in the area. Ritter outscored its final seven regular season opponents 214-80 and won six of those games.
“Coach Villars did have a hand in that,” Klevorn said. “He was still at practice and helped with the game-planning. He just couldn’t be with us on game days.”
The Lions were convincing champions of their district. But with the reputation as a basketball school, with exactly zero playoff wins in football, few thought Ritter’s season would go past the first round. Boy, were they wrong as the Lions trounced small-town powers Wright City and
Crystal City by a combined 55-25 score.
“That Crystal City game was probably as good a game as we’ve ever played,” Klevorn said. “We we’re just really prepared. And the kids were focused on playing their best game.”
Senior quarterback Quentin Davie was the catalyst that night, passing for 227 yards and two TDs. While dynamo tailback Mark Williams put on a show with two dazzling 70-yard kick returns for TDs.
“We knew we had to step up,” Davie, who passed for 1,214 yards and 13 TDs and rushed for 567 yards and scored another seven TDs this season, said. “We thought all along we could be good enough to do some damage in the playoffs. And us seniors wanted our final year to be a good one.”
Some of those other seniors included Williams, who led the team with 1,086 rushing yards and 12 TDs, as well as DL Brandon Bosley, WR/DB Antonio Gully, and versatile WR Kris Heard, who led the team with 13 TDs. Those seniors will have a chance to play college football as well next year. Davie has already committed to Dukewhile Gully and Heard are also being courted by several NCAA Division I schools. For the second consecutive year, Gully was among the area’s leaders in interceptionswith nine.
“Those kids all had a hand in making our season what it was,” Klevorn said. “Like I said, they’re a special group. And I’m just so proud of them all.”
Ritter’s magical season didn’t have the Hollywood ending its fans were hoping for though, as the Lions were bounced from the playoffs by Montgomery County 42-7. But Davie said the loss didn’t change a thing about his pride in himself or his teammates.
“No doubt this loss stings,” Davie said. “But nobody thought we would even get this far. So I’m real proud that my senior year was the best Cardinal Ritter football season ever.”