WEST POINT – Aeris Williams learned the definition of physicality.
As a ninth-grader, Williams watched his West Point High School football teammates lift weights and pull tires. On Thursdays, a day when other teams usually rest to prepare for the game the next day, Williams watched as members of the Green Wave did full workouts.
Williams’ indoctrination in 2010 continued in practice, games and the offseason. He began to understand what was expected if he was going to play Green Wave football.
“We already know what the standard is,” Williams said. “We just try to live up to that standard and be better than that standard…from the seniors all the way down, it just kind of trickles down. Everybody just picks it up.”
That mind-set helped Williams rush for 1,697 yards and 21 touchdowns as a senior and earn Mississippi Association of Coaches 5A Offensive Player of the Year honors. His accomplishments also earned him a scholarship to play football at Mississippi State University, where he is a redshirt freshman running back.
This season, a new generation of Green Wave players is learning similar lessons. Like Williams, who showed he was ready to become a featured tailback as a sophomore in 2011, a talented group of sophomores has helped re-establish the program’s physical style of play. Through nine games, West Point has rushed for more than 2,900 yards and had two players — Marcus Murphy and Chris Calvert — eclipse the 1,000-yard mark.
West Point (8-2), led by head coach Chris Chambless, will look to continue that trend today at 7 p.m. when it hosts to Lewisburg (3-8) in a Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A, Region 1 game at Hamblin Stadium.
But it wasn’t always this way.
Starting the change
In 1999, Dennis Allen took over the program that was mired in losing seasons. He also was the school’s fourth coach in six seasons, so he knew he had to do something to bring stability. After making only one playoff appearance in the 1990s, Allen worked through three-straight losing seasons before things started to change. In that time, he lured Chambless away from Caledonia and named him defensive coordinator. They transformed the program.
“It was hard at first,” Allen said. “We had to change the mind-set and it takes time. The first two years we weren’t real successful. We were successful in teaching a new work ethic.”
The Green Wave went 2-9 in 1999 and 1-9 in 2000. West Point finished 4-7 in 2001 and made the playoffs for the first since 1993. Chambless said that’s when the program was making a turn for the better.
In 2002, West Point was state runner-up to D’Iberville in the Class 4A State championship.
“From then on, we had that swagger back,” Chambless said. “That swagger hasn’t left.”
‘This is it’
The turnaround started in the weight room and with conditioning. Allen said players began to “pump that iron and pull those tires.” Running was a big part of practice to stay in shape and summers were used to get ready for the next season.
Even during the season, the weight room was used a lot. Chambless recalls many Thursdays before a game when his players did full body workouts to get the point across that West Point football was a physical brand.
“The future of our program depended on how strong we were going to be,” Chambless said. “We had to get in there and show that this matters.”
The mind-set began to change and the weight room became more and more popular for West Point players, which helped that physicality emerge every Friday.
“Even on a slow day we had to be physical,” former linebacker Kaleb Rush said. “Any team we played, we couldn’t let up on them.”
Rush, who played from 2004-07, was apart of the 2005 squad that won the Class 4A State championship, the first since winning the Class 5A State championship in 1989.
As an underclassman, Rush didn’t have a lot of time to get used to the way things were done. Chambless said Rush had to play early in his career, earlier than what both parties anticipated, but Rush accepted the challenge.
“I remember going in there a couple of days before a game and telling him, ‘Hey man, you’re up. This is it. Get yourself mentally ready,'” Chambless said. “He knew from that first game on, the weight room was going to be a major part of his success. He started hitting it really hard.”
Rush began to hit the weight room as a ninth-grader and saw his body change each year. By the time he graduated, he was a different person mentally and physically because of the West Point’s focus on physical football.
When he looks back, he said he has never worked as hard.
“That was one of the best workouts I have ever done,” Rush said. “I’ve done a few after that, but nothing compares to that.”
‘That’s what we do’
When Allen arrived in 1999, there were only 14 players on the ninth-grade team. He said that number was too low for a school the size of West Point, so he decided to get more players to play. He began with the players at the junior high level. The numbers began to grow.
When the 14 freshmen became seniors in 2002, the groundwork had been laid.
“It was those ninth-graders that had being doing it in ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th, and it actually paid off for them,” said Allen, who is an assistant coach at Canton Academy.
Allen stepped down after the 2005 season and Chambless took over. The transition was easy because Chambless didn’t change much. The weight room was still a big part of the program and he wanted the Green Wave to be a run-dominated, physical team.
“West Point’s football is not trying to be finesse,” Chambless said. “West Point football’s wearing you down, winning football games in the fourth quarter or overtime. That’s what we do.”
From 2006-08, the Green Wave made three playoff appearances. In the next two seasons, West Point held a combined record of 28-2 and won two Class 5A State championships. Chambless believes he didn’t keep the tradition alive by himself. He said an experienced coaching staff has helped him keep alive what he and Allen started.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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