Amherst senior football forfeits season

By Jolene Perron

A plague of injuries has caused General Amherst’s senior football team to forfeit their season prematurely.
When the season began, head coach John Rudak said he was struggling with only 26 players.

“I knew from the beginning we didn’t have a strong team,” said Rudak. “You deal with it, you go through the season, you play all your games and you move on. Hopefully everybody has a good time with it, fun, even though you’re not winning and then you go on and build it up for the next year.”

However, that’s not how the season panned out for the Bulldogs.

After their first game against Massey the team had five players taken to the hospital, with two having suspected neck injuries. Rudak said it’s tough to lose five players in an entire season, let alone a single game. The team lost 43-0.

By Oct. 14 the five injured players were out of commission, along with a few other players with minor injuries. Rudak forfeited the next game against Kennedy and the team took a week off.
The team went on to play Sandwich and lost 59-7. Injury problems continued as they went to play Villanova Oct. 4.

Rudak lost four players who would be gone for the remainder of the season. Three others had possible concussions. The team was on its last leg as they lost to Villanova 59-7.

Rudak said while he could maneuver his players around and switch their positions, their safety would be called in to question. He believed having inexperienced players at positions they’re unfamiliar with would only cause more injuries.

“If one person gets hurt … you’re done, and you can’t be done in the middle of a football game,” said Rudak.
“Basically it was all for the safety of the kids and it was probably one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make as a head coach in football was to the pull the plug on the whole season.”
The news was announced to the team Oct. 7 and it hasn’t been taken lightly. Rudak said many of the players were devastated by the news.

Adam Barron, a Grade 12 member of the senior football team, said while he is disappointed with the decision, it was necessary.

“It’s really disappointing because Amherst has had such a terrific history of football,” said Barron. “It was a good decision to end our team, we were getting embarrassed every week … But there were some guys who were kind of hopeful for scholarships in the future that don’t really have that opportunity anymore.”

Encouraging emails and phone calls have been flooding in to Rudak’s office all week. He is trying to keep football present in the boys’ lives.

“It will get better,” said Rudak. “The program is still going to continue on next year. We have a strong junior team right now and we’re looking to get a fresh set of bodies in there and get us going again.”