St. Henry prepares for varsity football, builds foundation for success

The fast track to varsity football is on a blazing pace for the St. Henry program.

While they’re still a year away from playing a varsity game, the foundation has been laid down. The Crusaders have nearly 50 players out to practice in preparations for their junior varsity and freshman seasons in 2024.

The turf field is in place, the JV and freshman schedule is set and players are picking up the game day-by-day. The process started way before hitting the field on July 10.

“The weight room is where you face failure, you can’t get stronger if you don’t fail,” Crusaders coach Tim Odom said. “So that’s a good teaching moment.”

On the field, it’s been a lot of basics, only a half-dozen or so have played the game organizationally before with no feeder system in place until last year with the Crusader Youth Football League.

“Just trying to teach them the game,” Odom said. “How to give contact, receive contact, protect themselves.”

Odom, who is no stranger to starting a program up, has built a mix with his coaching staff of experienced and first-year coaches. Dave Campbell, a former defensive coordinator at Georgetown College, guides the defense. Terry Durstock, a former Scott High assistant is also on staff. Then there’s others with playing experience and getting their feet wet on the coaching side.

“Dave guided the defense at Georgetown when they were national champions and Terry has program building experience,” Odom said. “Then we have a handful of first class men that will be great mentors that all have playing experience and are doing a great job.”

Odom has a long coaching history, is a Moeller (Ohio) grad and lettered for two seasons at Ohio State University. He’s coached in Ohio at Moeller, Glen Este and Lakota West. He also coached at Simon Kenton, leading the program to their first ever playoff win.

“At Simon Kenton I was too young to realize how big of a deal that was,” Odom said. “It feels more like a quest than it does a challenge. Feels like a mission. You grind and grind until there’s nothing else to grind. Lots of hours, lots of coaching meetings.”

The Crusaders have participated in 7-on-7’s and lineman challenges to stack up to see where they were. Odom has been pleased so far and thought the team has been doing better than he thought they would. The dedication to the program hasn’t lacked either.

“I have to chase them off the field because they want to get more reps in,” Odom said.

They’ll never get to experience a varsity football game, but Odom pointed to his seniors as leaders. Cody Crowder, Sam Richmond, Gavin Armbruster and Preston Gumz have led the way. Three of them have never played football before, Gumz played in Covington Catholic’s middle school program. They’ve all participated in other sports at the high school.

The Crusaders have 10 JV games scheduled, four freshman games scheduled. They get things kicked off on Aug. 26 in a JV contest with Dayton at home. A game with Bishop Brossart follows on Aug. 31.

“We’ll have a good feel of where we are pretty quick,” Odom said.

The current team makeup is four seniors, 16 juniors, 10 sophomores and 19 freshman.

When they play varsity come 2025, they’ll be slotted in the Class 2A, 5th District with Beechwood, Bracken County, Gallatin County, Owen County and Walton-Verona.

There’s a lot of tradition of excellence in athletics in St. Henry. They have Hall of Fame coaches and highly regarded programs in a variety of sports.

“That’s what is unique about this is we have a 90-year history in the classroom and extracurriculars,” Odom said. “Dave Faust (boys basketball coach) is a shoe-in Hall of Famer, Dan Trame is with the girls program. Volleyball, soccer, cross country always does well. They know what it takes to be successful. That’s where that energy comes from.” 

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