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The Cowboy way

Chaney returns to field with eye on school’s tradition

Staff photo / John Vargo Members of the Chaney football team work out in the weight room under the watchful eye of assistant coach R.C. Jones.

YOUNGSTOWN — The voice inflection was clear and concise. You knew when and where you had to be as you did the following: repetition and execution.

Chris Amill remembers the constant instruction coming from former Cardinal Mooney football coach Don Bucci, now the school’s athletic director.

Amill, a 1994 Cardinal Mooney High School graduate, embraced the traditions he learned as a Cardinals football player and as a member of the Mooney football staff. His desire was to give back to the game as a head coach.

The Cardinal Mooney graduate now wears the red of the Chaney Cowboys, walking the halls as head coach of the west-side Youngstown football team and the school’s dean of students.

“I always felt Youngstown city schools had a ton of talent,” said Amill, whose Chaney team is back on the field as a varsity sport for the first time since 2010. “If they had the right people around the players, I think they could flourish.”

Staff photo / John Vargo Chaney coach Chris Amill understands the tradition of Chaney football.

The first-year Chaney coach inherits a program which had standouts such as Anthony Floyd, Brad Smith, Michael Zordich and Jerry Olsavsky, along with a Heisman Trophy winner, Frank Sinkwich in 1942, just to name a few. There’s the legacy of coach Ron Berdis, who was instrumental in keeping players in a right mindset on and off the field. You can see those men immortalized in an entrance way of the high school.

This Chaney team is part of a community. There’s boys basketball coach Marlon McGaughy and other mentors around the school, keeping a watchful eye on the young men and women in this high school.

“That shows me the coaches really care where we are going to be in the future,” Chaney senior Marshall Herron said.

Social media. Smartphones. They are part of the athletic landscape. Chaney has athletic Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts, so do Cowboys athletes. Smart decisions. Amill and his staff stress even if you remove a post, someone can screenshot it or other coaches can see the deleted words.

“One of our messages is choices,” Amill said. “Choices are long-lasting and life-changing. The choices you make today will affect you tomorrow — good or bad. Being consistent with that message with our players has been important.”

Staff photo / John Vargo Members of the Chaney High School football team huddle up during a recent practice.

Athletes, not just football, make their way to the school’s cafeteria for an afterschool meal. That’s where Amill heads on a Monday afternoon, soon after the 2:30 p.m. school dismissal. He begins telling his players to head toward the cafeteria. It’s like any other high school, teenagers goofing around in the halls. It’s up to Amill and others Chaney instructors to give them the guiding hand in the right direction.

“High school is high school,” Amill said. “You’re going to have your high school drama. There’s no real issues. City schools always get that reputation of whatever people want to make up. When you come through here, people are in class, they’re doing their work. There’s no issues. There’s no riots.

“It’s a bunch of kids. They’ll goof around, play around in the hallway. Just convincing these parents that this is a great place to be. In five years, I expect to take these kids on college visits to see someone they knew from Chaney they played with or heard of from the college level.”

Down the hallway, strength and conditioning coach R.C. Jones, a former Mooney standout, takes over and makes sure these Chaney players are ready for Friday nights. On one side of the weight room you’d see the players in two parallel lines doing push-ups. Amill caught one player not following the group. The entire room suffers as they start again.

Junior quarterback Delshawn Petrosky, who recently had an offer from Kent State University, played at East last season since the Youngstown City Schools had one program. Others came back home from other Mahoning Valley schools to be part of a program which has an old-school feel.

“I think we’re a coordinated team,” Petrosky said. “We keep things simple, fast, straightforward.”

Grades. Nothing on the field happens for this Chaney team unless they have the grades.

Youngstown State University football players with Mooney ties, like Ray Anderson, Vinny Gentile, John Murphy and others, come to Chaney on their off day to help with study tables.

“It gets you prepared mentally and physically,” said Herron, whose father Mark was an all-city player for the Cowboys in the early 1990s. “You can’t get on the field without your grades. Having a study table helps you get on the field. You can’t practice without study table.”

The guided tour around Chaney takes you to a classroom where video of the Cowboys’ Friday opponent, Ursuline, is being projected on a whiteboard.

Players are focused on the schemes, learning how to prepare for the Fighting Irish.

Junior Aaron Gault is taking notice, soaking in all the intricacies.

He’s played baseball since he’s been 5 years old and does that at Heartland Christian School in Columbiana, where he attends during the week.

Gault leaves Columbiana a period early and heads back to his west-side home, gets his gear and goes to Chaney since Heartland doesn’t have a football program. This is his first year playing football. It took a bit of convincing for his mother to let him play, but his father, Chris, who was a standout at McDonald in the late 1990s, passed on his passion for the game to Aaron.

“It’s a great experience,” Aaron said. “Football is a great thing for me.”

This is year one of a Chaney football program, which wants to put itself in a conversation for state championships.

That means doing things the Cowboy way, which changed from the years Floyd, who was with the University of Louisville and the Indianapolis Colts, played for Berdis.

“We want to make sure our kids are putting the effort in, not just to see on the court or the field, but also succeed in life,” Floyd said.

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