Small players, big game

In the language of Football Coachspeak, the word "big" or "huge" can be substituted to mean important.

Huge game tonight, boys. Gonna come down to big plays.

But when high school teams across Southeast Missouri step on the field for the first time tonight, a handful of players will be out to prove that football is a little man's game, too.

These days, typical high school linemen measure taller than 6 feet and weigh more than 200 pounds. Some are closer to 300.

Then you have guys like Trey Schlosser from Scott City, who will start tonight at running back for the Rams. At 137 pounds, he could share the field this year with players double his weight and perhaps a foot taller. Rosters across the region are dotted with players of 130 or 140 pounds. Some might question their sanity. But no one seems to question their heart. It doesn't hurt to have a little smarts and speed, either.

Cody McCuan, Seth Wachter, Ben Prevallet, Adam Rhodes, Trey Schlosser and Tallon Casebolt emphasize their other abilities to succeed on the football field.AARON EISENHAUER aeisenhauer@semissourian.com

Schlosser, for example, runs the 40-yard dash in 4.52 seconds, which is within the range of college running backs. Bigger players can't squash what they can't catch.

At Chaffee High School, defensive back Nick Cicardi is only 5 feet 8 inches tall and 135 pounds, but he uses his eyes and brains to even the playing field.

"He can see things really well back there in the secondary," said head coach Charlie Vickery. "It's hard to trick him."

It's also hard to outwork him.

"He's one of the type who never misses an off-season workout," Vickery said. "He plays basketball and really works hard to maximize his abilities."

Cicardi won't start tonight but will see playing time at defensive back and is in the mix for a starting job. He competes by refusing to give anyone an inch. "I've just got to fight. I can't give up," he said. "I don't get beat."

Cicardi grew an inch and gained 10 to 20 pounds over the past year. "Last year I didn't know if I wanted to play," he said. "This year I know I can play, and I'm ready to play."

That's certainly the case in Perryville, where at just 5 feet 6 inches and 155 pounds, Adam Rhodes is perhaps the smallest lineman in the region. He starts at defensive end and plays center on offense. If he's not ready to play, he's roadkill.

His motor is his weapon.

"Everything he does is 100 mph," said his coach, Rick Chastain. "His weight and size have never been a situation with him. He doesn't know any other pace."

Rhodes is strong and quick off the ball but concedes he's sometimes matched up against bigger opponents who are as strong and as quick. "You've just got to fight through that," Rhodes said.

Rhodes started last year. Because of his small stature, opposing players often made the mistake of underestimating him, Chastain said. If an opponent does take him lightly, "Adam Rhodes will whip him like a dog."

Perryville teammate Ben Prevallet, at 5 feet 7 inches and 130 pounds, plays more conventional smallish positions -- wide receiver and defensive back. He will start as wide receiver tonight. Like Rhodes, he works hard in the offseason and plays hard, Chastain said. "He has a tremendously huge heart. What he doesn't have in physical size he makes up in effort."

Prevallet said he learned his work ethic from his father. "I've had it ever since I was little and played soccer."

'Outdo the big guys'

At Scott City, Schlosser's quickness earned him the starting spot at running back. "Speed is a big thing in our offense," said coach Ron Jones, in his first year coaching the Rams after at long run at Caruthersville, Mo.

Schlosser actually enjoys the challenges of being small. "I try to outdo the big guys," he said.

A lack of height in the defensive secondary concerns most coaches because today's receivers tend to be tall, creating matchup problems. Schlosser probably will be used more on offense than defense for that reason.

Everything about the new football season is new for Schlosser's teammate Tallon Casebolt. Though a junior, Casebolt has never played organized football before. "All my buddies who play on the team kept nagging me about it," he said.

A defensive back and wide receiver who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and 130 pounds, he's taken to tackling but still has a little trouble catching the football.

His mother is nervous about him playing, but his father is excited. "My dad called me son again," kidded Casebolt, who will help keep the team loose no matter how much he plays.

He isn't a starter, but the anticipation has been building toward tonight's first game. "I've never felt anything like it before," he said.

Rite of passage

Playing football is almost a rite of passage for males who grow up in Jackson. Little boys dream of the Friday night lights. So do the old men in the stands.

Senior Seth Wachter's brothers Adam and Ben both played for Jackson before him. They had to overcome the same physical stature. Adam turned his strength and light weight into an advantage, becoming a state champion wrestler in 2000. Seth doesn't wrestle. "I love football," he said, all the explanation necessary.

Wachter's 5 feet 5 inches tall and 130 pounds. "I've always been the smallest person on the team. You've got to work your rear end the whole time," he said.

He has done everything he knows to bulk up, but he never can get his weight over 130 pounds. He said he can lift as much as players 20 and 30 pounds heavier.

A wide receiver and defensive back, most of his playing time has come on the kickoff team and when the outcome of the game is already decided.

At times he's gotten frustrated playing a game where size matters so much, but just being on the Jackson football team is enough for him. "I love doing it," he said. "I love coming out here and playing."

At 112 pounds, Cody McCuan is one of the smallest players in the region. The Jackson sophomore hopes he's still growing. His father is 6 feet 4 inches tall, but his mother is only 5 feet tall. When he fractured a finger in camp this summer, the X-ray revealed he still has growth plates. That's good news when you're a 5-foot-5-inch football player.

The defensive back knows receivers with longer legs have an advantage over him. "I have to keep a bigger cushion and make them take a couple of steps back to make sure I can stay with them," he said.

Longtime Jackson coach Carl Gross has players like Wachter and McCuan on his squad every year. "They play big," he said. "Anything we do they take their turn."

Players like Wachter and McCuan always have the respect of their teammates no matter what their size, Gross said. "It's all about the camaraderie with their teammates before practices and everybody working for a common goal."

Being smaller than other players may make high school football more of a challenge, but these boys could have an advantage over their bigger teammates when they begin life beyond football. A study of Iowa high school football players found that 45 percent of linemen were overweight. That compared to just 18.3 percent who are overweight in the general population of 12-to-19-year-olds.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137