Motivation is easy for Christopher-Zeigler-Royalton coach Josh McCurren this week.
It’s Sesser week.
That’s all the Bearcats need to know.
Sesser-Valier is the game Christopher circles on its calendar each year, two neighboring schools who play for a traveling Highway 148 sign each year.
Suffice it to say, it’s not any ordinary Black Diamond Conference matchup.
And in that way, it makes McCurren’s job a little easier.
“The only added information we give the kids is, “Hey, we should not have to motivate you this week,’” McCurren said. “Maybe if we are playing another team we need to motivate you extra hard to get this kid. With Sesser, there should not be any extra motivational factor into it. They should be ready to roll. They should want to win and play their hardest because it’s Sesser. It should be that way every single week, but with this week there should be no doubt with the rivalry we should not have to go over the top to motivate these kids, they should be wanting and should be motivated themselves to want to go out there and play football and win.”
McCurren said the proximity of the two schools helps make it such a special rivalry.
Also, players on each side know each other well — often from the times they first started playing sports.
“It’s always been a real close rivalry,” McCurren said. “We’re only eight miles apart as towns go and even a little closer than that because Valier is in their school district and it’s only three miles outside of Christopher.
“It’s one of those rivalries where kids grow up playing baseball against each other and then they get into the grade school and they play basketball against each other, junior high track against each other. And then finally they are in high school and they get to compete in football against each other. It’s just one of those rivalries where everybody knows everybody and people have stayed here a long time through the years and it just goes from generation to generation and it’s built up to be one of the best around southern Illinois.”
In Sesser’s trophy case sits a Highway 148 sign that goes to the winner in this series.
It’s what the Bearcats hope to take back when the teams meet at 7 p.m. Friday. The game was originally scheduled for Saturday afternoon but moved to Friday, McCurren said, because it worked better for both schools.
“It’s just an old sign I believe the Highway department gave us,” McCurren said of the traveling trophy. “John Hollis when he was the coach there a few years ago, he’s the one who actually started the tradition of the sign. He and I got together and it was his idea and we used to run a summer combine as well, a competition, that carried over to week five of our rivalry week. The competition in the summer we no longer do, but the rivalry, exchanging the sign, that’s something we do every year and hopefully it continues for years to come.”
Sesser controlled the series in the 2000s. “They had quite a run against us,” McCurren said, until the Bearcats broke through with a win in 2011.
The sign began in 2012, and Sesser claimed the initial bragging rights. Christopher came back and won at Sesser in 2013 to take back the Highway 148 sign, but the Red Devils have won it the past two years, including a 53-12 victory last year.
“We are going to do our best to get it back and get it in our trophy case,” McCurren said.
To do that, McCurren said the Bearcats need to focus on the fundamentals.
“The little things are hurting us right now,” McCurren said. “We’re not lining up in the right places. We’re not doing the little things properly. That creates our timing off offensively and defensively. If the kids can communicate and stay together as a team, we might line up correctly nine out of 10 plays, but that one play might be a touchdown. We might be completing passes down the field, but the one time we run the wrong route our quarterback might get sacked because he can’t throw the ball to the proper place, or a missed block here or there. Those are the little things we’re going to shore up this week.”
Christopher enters with an 0-4 record having scored 14 points in four weeks. Sesser also is struggling at 1-3 but with a 28-0 win over an Edwards County squad that shut out the Bearcats in week three.
Of course it’s a cliché, but this is one matchup when you can throw the records out of the window.
Especially if you throw them out the window while driving down Highway 148.
“We’re hoping the extra motivation that we should not have to provide, the kids will have themselves, that will enhance their focus for the week,” McCurren said. “It’s not just a win-loss football game. It’s pride within the community. It’s also that sign, that trophy you get to have the bragging rights for a whole year. It’s Friday night football and it doesn’t get any better than that.”
