Team

Crestview

Record	Div.	Conf.
6/4	Div. V	Independents

Paul Cusick has led Crestview to the Inter Tri-County League Tier One championship the last three seasons. The Rebels have started out this season 2-1, and are the preseason favorites to claim their fourth title in the league’s six years of existence.

Q. How many years have you been the Rebels’ head coach?

A. Thirteen, and three before that at Leetonia.

Q. Haven’t the Rebels been pretty successful under your watch? How do you achieve that?

A. Our numbers are up since we went to the spread offense. We’ve gotten a lot of different one-way starters and that’s helped. From 7th-grade to JVs, we make sure everyone plays. We don’t sacrifice that. We try to win every game, but not at the expense of holding back those who put in time in practice. On Fridays, the varsity guys will play, but at all other levels we’re going to let the kids play. We don’t discourage them.

Q. Sounds like a sensible philosophy, right?

A. Yes, and the other coaches have adopted it, too. We realize that three or four years down the road, you have no idea what a kid will develop into. So we want him around.

Q. Are Crestview kids different from other schools?

A. We’ve got pretty much the same kind of kid everyone else has. Our kids work hard, they’re pretty disciplined and we expect a lot out of them. They don’t have any complaints about that.

Q. How’s this year’s talent?

A. We’re still trying to figure out who we are. Week-to-week we’re getting better. We’ve got nine new starters on offense, so that’s been kind of a learning process. We’re doing a lot of learning on the fly.

Q. Your big gun the last few years was QB Carter Hill. What’s filled the void?

A. His leadership and ability are missed because he did a lot of good things for us. This year, offensively, we don’t worry about one person replacing Carter. We’ve been able to move the ball around using a lot of different guys. Using their strengths and abilities is how we approached it.

Q. Where do you see Crestview football in five years?

A. Hopefully, we keep improving. Our goals are to win the league championship and get to a higher level of the playoffs. We’re trying to carve a niche and get recognition, not just locally, but on the state level.

Interview by John Bassetti.