OLD TOWN – Shawn Myers and Jimmy Feero are not only co-captains of this year’s Old Town High School football team, they’re the only seniors on the 27-player squad.

That means their importance to the squad won’t be measured solely on game day.

Far from it, in fact.

“We have to be patient,” said Myers, a running back and strong safety. “But the big thing we need to do is to try and help the younger players as much as we can, to show them the right way to do things. Positive reinforcement is a pretty important part of what we have to do, because we have a lot of young guys.

“We want to win games, but we also want to have fun playing football.”

With 21 freshmen and sophomores, the Old Town football team is a work in progress. Coming off a winless 2002 campaign, new head coach Dan Baker is approaching this season with the short-term goal of pursuing victories and a longer-term goal of rebuilding the program.

Baker knows the possibilities. He played for the Indians between 1989 and 1991, earning all-conference and all-state honors while helping Old Town win the 1991 LTC Class B championship.

Baker also knows that strengthening the program for the long term begins with increasing the number of youngsters in the Canoe City who are playing the sport.

“It’s a great challenge,” said Baker, who spent four years as a varsity assistant at Old Town between 1997 and 2000 after coaching the program’s freshman and eighth-grade teams for one year each. “It’s something I’ve been looking forward to the last couple of years, to be honest. In my spare time I’ve thought about how to make it happen. It’s going to be a long process, getting out to the YMCA, getting that program going, getting some marketing happening.

“I have three coaches including myself in the school now, so if we can get more kids out and get them in the weight room, we can build a community so that kids want to play football for even more than just football.”

This year’s team will run a straight-T offense and a 5-2 defense.

“We’re going to keep it very, very simple, and try to master the basics,” said Baker, the team’s third head coach in as many years. “We want to focus on the fundamentals, blocking and tackling, and try not to get too fancy, which is sometimes hard for a coach because you think if you can weave some more X’s and O’s in there, you can make some magic. But we’re going to fight that urge and just try to stay focused on simplicity and fundamentals and improving from day to day.

“We just want to get better every week. We’re very young, so if we can stay positive and stay focused and get better, then I’m happy.”

For Myers and Feero, the hope is that not only do they play a role in the rebuilding of the program, but that the path to future success is lined with some victories this year.

“We’ve had a couple of tough years,” said Feero, “but we’ve got a good coaching staff, and we want to start winning games.”

OLD TOWN INDIANS

2002 results: 0-9, 8th in LTC Class B

Coach: Dan Baker, 1st year

Key players: Jimmy Feero, OG-LB, Sr.; Shawn Myers, RB-DB, Sr.; Chris Cooney, FB-LB, Jr.; Jared Goody, QB-DB, So.; Tyler Eastman, OT-DT, Jr.; Ben Bartlett, RB-LB, Jr.; Matt Boobar, OG-DT, Jr.

Outlook: Old Town has some promising younger players, based on a successful eighth-grade program last year, and many of those freshmen are likely to play significant roles as the Indians struggle to cope with a lack of upperclassmen.