Beware Poland's Mighty Midgets

By Joe Scalzo

The Bulldogs’ nasty defenders have helped engineer a 3-0 start.

POLAND — When Tanner Schultheis and his best friend, Gannon Hulea, were squeaky-voiced fourth graders, they roamed the sidelines at Poland High Stadium as Bulldog ball boys whose bark was still a tad bigger than their bite.

When they weren’t stealing other team’s footballs (they tried to steal one per game and stash it in the kicker’s bag, behavior not endorsed by the former or current coaching staff) or getting spit on by opposing players, they were engaged in a little trash talking.

“The other teams would talk trash to us,” said Schultheis, who was a ball boy through eighth grade. “We were fourth graders, so we’d just be like, ‘Oh yeah, whatever.’ If we were winning, we’d tell them to look at the scoreboard.”

And if you were losing?

“We wouldn’t say anything,” he said. “We just ran away fast.”

Schultheis hasn’t got much bigger since then — he’s generously listed as 5-foot-10, 185 pounds in the program, but he admits “I haven’t seen 5-10 ever; maybe in high heels” — but he has gotten bolder.

Coach Mark Brungard calls Schultheis “one of the nastiest players I’ve ever had” and says “he’s got a little Napoleon in him.”

The three-year starter — who actually stands 5-8 (“on a good day,” he said) — is the leader of what the Poland coaches affectionately call “The Might Midgets,” a defense that has keyed the Bulldogs’ 3-0 start.

A second-team all-Metro Athletic Conference linebacker last year, Schultheis is one of the team’s senior captains and helps set the tone for a team that entered this season with a bit of a chip on its shoulder.

“We kept hearing how good other teams were and I think a lot of people underestimated us,” Schultheis said. “That just added fuel to the fire. Each week we try to show what we’re about.”

With Canfield and Howland — the preseason favorites in the Red Tier of the All-American Conference — stumbling to 1-2 starts, the Bulldogs now enter the spotlight for Friday’s game against 3-0 Lakeview, which was a regional finalist in Division III last year.

“I didn’t really expect us to have the success we had,” Brungard said. “We’re very confident right now and Lakeview’s gonna be a big challenge.”

Schultheis played baseball and hockey growing up, switching to football in the sixth grade. His fearlessness has consequences on the field (he injured his neck last year against East Liverpool and left in an ambulance) and off it.

Hulea, the son of former Poland head coach and current assistant coach Paul Hulea, invited Schultheis out to the family farm, which features 30 acres of land and a swimming pool that serves as the home of the “Cold Test.”

Here’s how it works. Whenever newbies come to the farm, Hulea fills up a big raft with ice water, then tells his guest to jump in, thus proving his mettle. Schultheis jumped, Hulea pulled the raft away at the last second and his best friend blasted into the water chest-first.

(Schultheis has tried to gain revenge by revealing that Hulea played soccer when he was younger.)

“He’s a great friend,” Hulea said. “He always has your back.”

That holds true for the rest of the defense, which, as Brungard said, “doesn’t intimidate anyone with their heights and weights.

“But I’ve never had a team that plays with that kind of edge. It’s fun to watch. They give themselves a concussion by the end of the week.”

When he’s not busting heads, Schultheis plays NCAA 2009 on his Playstation 3, follows the Ohio State Buckeyes (he got sunburned at Saturday’s game and subscribes to their Scout.com recruiting Web site) and watches reruns of “Lost.”

He’s also a good student with a 3.3 grade point average and eyes on a sports management major at Hawaii.

“I’m going to visit there in December,” he said, “and see if I like it.”

(Bold prediction of the week: He will.)

Until then, Schultheis will focus on the Bulldogs — both on his sideline and on the opposing one. And if everything goes right, he still won’t need to do any trash talking.

He’ll just tell them to look at the scoreboard.

scalzo@vindy.com