Marshall private school
to field 6-man football team
By Jon Dustin Brooks, News Messenger
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Just last fall, this area didn't have much to offer for the six-man football fan. A lot can change in a year, though.
Beginning this fall, there appears to be two six-man football teams that will call Harrison County home.
Karnack announced its plans to compete in six-man football during the UIL's biennial redistricting earlier this month, and now a private school in Marshall will follow suit.
Marshall Christian Academy, a school based through The Church in Marshall, will compete in six-man football beginning this fall.
"This is something I know some of these kids and parents have dreamed of for ten or fifteen years," said the school's director of athletics Guy Barr, a former head tennis coach at Marshall High School and also assistant principal at Sam Houston Junior High who joined MCA last summer. "To us, we're looking at it as Facing the Giants. These kids are raising their own money to start this thing. They're out already running on their own and starting to lift weights."
Barr said the kids have been serving lunches after church to earn money, and the school is planning on selecting its new mascot soon, which it will then place on T-shirts to be available for purchase.
It has also received donations from a few established football programs.
"We've had some shoulder pads donated from a couple of high school teams from Monroe (La.) and had cleats donated from the Kansas City Chiefs," Barr said.
The addition of football will just be an extension of the entire athletics program for MCA, which has about 65 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, including just more than 20 at the high school level, 11 of which are boys.
MCA kicked off its program last fall with boys soccer and boys and girls cross country at the high school level, where the boys soccer team qualified for the state tournament and the cross country teams won the state title.
This spring, the school will fill out boys and girls track and field teams as well as tennis and golf teams.
Barr also said the school is looking into adding girls volleyball next fall, to complement the football team for the boys. The school competes in the Texas Christian Athletic League (TCAL), which is based out of San Antonio.
"What we liked about that conference was that it's very Christian-oriented, very Christ-centered and they allow home schoolers to compete," Barr said.
Ray Bade, a leader at the school who has been involved since he moved to Marshall in 1987 when it went by the name Solid Rock Christian School, said the addition of competitive athletics has been positive.
"It's a wonderful thing to happen to our schools," Bade said. "It brought us together as a big family, but it's also going to open up the door for us to invite some of the home school students to be a part of our program. Maybe give some kids that have no athletic outlet, so to speak, a chance to compete."
MCA is still looking for a home football field. The school uses a plot of land across the street from where its church is located on South Washington to play its soccer games, but because it wants to play football games on Friday nights, lights would likely need to be rented, which could be too expensive.
Barr added that an option might be for the team to play most of its games on the road next season. Because there's not many six-man teams through TCAL in this area, MCA shares a current football district with just one other team, Phoenix Charter out of Greenville.
But Barr said most of its schedule has tentatively been filled, with games against public schools Leverett's Chapel, Apple Springs and Karnack, as well as other local private schools.
The football team will begin with 14 days of spring practice this semester before fall practices start August 1.
"What we believe God was telling us to do with the sports was that it would reflect our Christian walk and that we would be able to use this as an avenue for discipleship," Barr said. "When you get knocked down, are you going to get back up? That's really the purpose."
