New Program, New Expectations For Maritime/Tapestry

Photo by Shawn Turri

After five years of partnering with Health Sciences to combine each other’s rosters into one team, Maritime had a prosperous period on the football field. Three times they won sectionals in Class B, and the program was stable.

Maritime, however, switched alliances this season and is now partnering with Tapestry. According to first-year coach Glynn Molinich, the chance to do so is refreshing for everyone involved.

“It’s a pseudo-reset for us, but it’s a very exciting opportunity,” Molinich said. “Integrating each other’s kids was very seamless. We've been doing offseason workouts since March, and as the season has gone on they’ve really gelled together.

“There's been no animosity or stuff like you see in the movies or TV shows, like ‘You're from one school, we’re from the other.’ There's really nothing like that with our squad, they’ve really gelled together – which I'm very grateful for because you don't see that all the time. Overall, we’re just trying to get kids to get their football IQs up and that's where we're at right now.”

Molinich, a former football player at the University at Buffalo, brought some familiar faces from his playing days to his staff to help with the teaching process, and so far the communication among the staff and between the coaches and players has gone smoothly.

“Knowing each other is really invaluable, and it's kind of ridiculous when you when you look at these guys’ resumes,” Molinich said. “Our offensive coordinator, Alex Neutz, is UB’s all-time leader in receiving touchdowns and spent some time with the Cincinnati Bengals as well. Then we have our defensive line coach, Brandon Crawford. He played professionally overseas and was one of the standouts at UB from 2013-16.

“Our running backs coach is Diamond King-Williams, my younger brother Jake is our fullbacks and tight ends coach. The fact that we have so many people that have played at a high level who are willing and able and excited to coach young men at the high school level – that is something that I've personally never seen before in my time as a coach or even being around high school football. I'm super grateful to have a deep staff of guys from that background who are willing to do all that and it's truly incredible.”

As talented as his staff is, Molinich also realizes that you're only as good as the talent you've got to work with. The Seahawks are a young team, but with guys like Johnny Williams, Mekhi Hawkins, Anthony Martin and Malik Allen on his roster there is optimism for their future despite an 0-2 start to 2023.

“Those guys have experience from our previous partnership with Health Sciences and that’s invaluable, but if you want to put a percentage on it we’re about an 85% new varsity football team where there's so many kids from Maritime and Tapestry that never had varsity snaps before this year,” Molinich said. “They've worked hard and grown together as a unit, but the best learning experience is gaining experience.

“I'm super grateful for these past two weeks where we've grown together as a team, and it's only up from here because we’ve got to learn from going through the fire. You can't have the coaches in your back ear in games like during a scrimmage or in practice. Those guys with experience have been huge, huge helps in developing the team as a whole, and these young men will get better and grow as people and football players as well.”