You have to learn how to add and subtract before multiplying and dividing.”

SCHS AD and Football HC John Dryden

At the BCS Kickoff event at Shelbyville Central High School on Tuesday morning, teachers from schools all around the county packed into the Rick Insell Gymnasium. This group also included school administrators, and the athletic directors of both Shelbyville Central and Cascade High were gracious enough to talk to the Times-Gazette about the broad-scope outlook on the upcoming school year.

Shelbyville Central

John Dryden – who is also the SCHS Head Football Coach – and Chris Fritz – who is also the Head Boys’ Soccer Coach – are the fall/spring ADs at SCHS this year. Fritz of course will handle more of the fall side of things while Dryden leads the football program, and then Dryden will slide seamlessly more into the administrative side of things once the spring semester begins while Fritz begins to focus on his duties on the sideline for the Boys’ Soccer program.

Fritz, in his first year with his new role, is ecstatic for the upcoming school year, and he and Dryden both feel like the athletic department as a whole is taking steps in the right direction both for boys and girls. 

“The boys’ programs are on the way up, even more so this year,” Dryden said prior to the BCS Kickoff event, “Girls are on that trajectory as well; going up on the inside while the outside may or may not be so obvious.”

“You have to learn how to add and subtract before multiplying and dividing,” Dryden added.

Looking at the fall, there are five sports taking place with boys and girls golf, girls’ soccer, football, cross country, and girls’ volleyball. Golf wasted no time to get started, taking their first official match shot off the tee on Monday in Lawrenceburg before returning to Riverbend on Tuesday afternoon to play 18 holes against county rivals Cascade and Webb School.

Football is coming off of an incredible turnaround from the 2022/23 school year when the Golden Eagles went 1-10 to last season where they went 10-2 and won a playoff game. Dryden is looking to build off of last season’s success despite losing quite a few important seniors from that squad.

John Dryden (left) has the Eagles' Football program charging in the right direction.

The Times-Gazette will have a more in-depth look at this season’s Golden Eagles team in next week’s edition. Their first game is on Thursday, August 22, at Siegel High, live on WLIJ 98.7 and AM 1580.

Girls’ Soccer is losing multiple college signees from last year’s team, including basketball star and last year’s top scorer in Paige Blackburn, and so the Eaglettes, who went 4-8-1 last season, are looking to continue their rebuild this fall. Casey Curry is in charge of navigating this program through the highest classification in the state of Tennessee, and it is a tall order. Their first game of the season is scheduled for Tuesday, August 13, against district opponent Warren County on the road. 

Volleyball, under new coach Kendall Hampton, who has experience in the area and community, is currently listed to open their season on Tuesday, August 20, at Columbia Central. However, since Columbia is a district opponent, there is a good chance that a non-district opponent will be added (or is already on an unpublished schedule) onto the schedule before then. Hampton is looking to turn around a pretty new program that went 0-11 last season. 

Cross Country does not have an available published public schedule at this time. 

Cascade

Andy Giel is entering his second year assuming double duty as the athletic director at Cascade and the head coach of the school’s wrestling program. After a gap year, he was named the long term replacement for the long-time community staple, Dale Rucker, before last school year, and he was gracious enough to talk with the Times-Gazette later in the morning on Tuesday.

Like SCHS, Giel is optimistic about the direction that a majority of the athletic programs are headed. After Jake Tyre stepped down from his position as the head football coach, Giel went out and hired Jared Carkuff before spring practice began earlier this year. 

“With football, we graduated a lot,” Giel emphasized. “However, Jared is bringing a lot of energy and obviously a different style of football that we’ve never seen here before, so I am excited to see with some of these younger guys to get his program established.”

The new style that Carkuff is bringing with him from his previous stop in South Carolina is much more akin to the modern game than anything Cascade has seen previously. The Champions will be spreading out defenses with three and four wide receiver sets almost exclusively this season, and in turn, theoretically at least, this should make it easier to run the ball. Wide splits to the sidelines put defenses in conflict, and make it very clear whether the offense should run or throw the ball based on the amount of defenders in the box. This, of course, will look a whole lot different than the last couple years, but there will be three different opportunities in the preseason to work out the kinks before the opening game.

“There is a scrimmage at home on Monday against MTCS, one next Friday at home against Lincoln County, and then the Jamboree against Webb the following week,” Giel laid out. 

In his final two seasons at Cascade, Tyre compiled a record of 11-11 (4-5). Last season, Cascade had two road trips on their schedule of two hours or longer in the regular season; this season they have zero such trips. The longest drives will be to Watertown, a former Region opponent, and Huntland, which is less than an hour away from campus. Marion County will more than likely win the region again, but as long as Cascade doesn’t finish third or fourth, they can avoid having to travel to someone like East Robertson and can host in the first round of the playoffs. 

Like they did in 2022, Cascade will open their season at Moore County.

The Champions’ season opens on the road at Moore County on Friday, August 23 and will be broadcasted live on The Zinger 100.9 and AM 1400 for the fourth consecutive season.

“I think our girls’ team is returning everybody so we are looking for them to do pretty well this year,” Giel said about the golf program. “The boys’ team graduated quite a few from last year, but this allows a lot of the younger guys to have a chance to step up and compete.”

Under the guidance of Jeremy Bankston, both the boys’ and girls’ golf programs have attempted to maintain a level of success that was established under the previous coach, Jared Jones. 

“Volleyball established a pretty good foundation last year under Coach O’Rourke,” said Giel. “They graduated a lot of key pieces, but this is her second year so there should be some growth among the younger girls too.”

First-year head coaches almost always walk into a pretty difficult situation, especially at the high school level. With O’Rourke, having a full offseason under her belt for the first time to adjust her style of volleyball to her team personnel should work wonders on the court as she begins her second season.

“Girls’ Soccer graduated at least seven or eight from the team last year that made a run to the state tournament,” Giel continued, “but they have a pretty good young group coming up, so they should do pretty well once they get everything ironed out.”

The Lady Champs broke through and made program history last season under head coach Wendy Williams, defeating Cheatham County, 2-1, at home to qualify for the program’s first ever state tournament. Their reward? Facing recently reclassified Kingston High (moved down from AA). Kingston handled Cascade with relative ease out in Chattanooga, but the run to state will never be forgotten. 

Their season kicks off in a few short weeks, but unfortunately there is not a publicly available schedule just yet.

“Cross Country, Coach Spears is taking that over this year,” Giel concluded, “He’s going to put a lot into it, and the team should be set within the next week or so.”

It also looks like Spears is taking back the reins of the Boys’ Soccer program as well, at least according to the TSSAA School Directory website. There is not yet a publicly available cross-country schedule for Cascade either. 

All of us at the Shelbyville Times-Gazette are working hard to bring you the best local coverage possible, especially at the high school level of athletics. Unfortunately, Community’s Athletic Director was not available at the BCS Kickoff event. The Vikings and Viqueens from Unionville are not being ignored, and we are making our best efforts to provide the best coverage possible for every single student-athlete this upcoming school year.