Brewer hopes to build on success Outlook bright for Witches

BREWER – That one-of-a-kind feeling was back, the one Dana Corey had already been lucky to experience as both a player and a coach.

Saturday afternoon’s sky was overcast and there was an overpowering chill in the air that was being whipped around by the wind, but the offensive coordinator and assistant coach of the Brewer High School football team felt warm all over.

It took the better part of three decades, but the former two-way starter for the 1968 Class A state champion Witches was feeling it again, as was the entire coaching staff and all 44 varsity players as they made their traditional march from Brewer High down Wilson Street to Doyle Field.

“Oh yeah. I mean, when you’re walking down the street behind the band, it’ll take you back,” Corey said. “If you love the game, even with some losing seasons you still have good memories and yeah, it puts a spring in your step.”

For the first time in 34 years, Brewer was playing for a regional football title and it was d?j? vu for Corey, who was a kicker, quarterback and safety on the 1968 undefeated state champ team and an assistant coach for Ken Perrone’s nationally-ranked, unbeaten 1970 squad – the last Brewer team to win a state crown.

“You get just as keyed up as the players. My heart was just “boom, boom, boom, boom’ coming down,” said Corey with a wide smile. “You get ready to put on a helmet and go, but you know you can’t.”

Smiles were hard to come by on the Brewer sideline as time ticked away on a 14-0 Winslow victory in the Pine Tree Conference Class B title game, but team members and fans alike were still mindful of what this newly concluded 9-2 season meant.

“That’s exactly right. We’re finding now that we’ve made our big step and won our first playoff game in awhile,” Corey explained. “We’ve been here now and as we’ve built our program, kids are starting to think they belong here as opposed to something that happens once in awhile and that’s what you have to build on.”

Corey thinks this Witches program can build on the 2004 season much the same way his unbeaten squad built its state- title season on the foundation of a 4-5 1967 season.

“That [1968] was our second year in A and we got it handed to us my junior year. That was a growing year for us,” he said. “What’s funny is that team was a second-half team as well, so there are a few similarities.”

More than a few, actually.

“We also have a number of kids coming back. The one thing that brings back the best memories are the type of kids we have on this team,” Corey added. “They remind me of the Maxsimics, the Spragues, the Tardiffs … I could on and on.

“We got along. We learned how to play team ball. Nobody got a lot of carries. It was the same type of offense with a lot of misdirection and there were a lot of people playing a lot of positions.”

With eight of 12 graduating seniors being starters, the Witches will have holes to fill, but they also have a lot of returning talent. Still, the Witches can’t take the next step with experienced talent alone.

“These guys have to learn the same lessons we did from that 1967 season. The first is that you have to put in a lot of hard work,” Corey said. “Back then, we couldn’t have any coaching clinics, so we’d come down on our own and work on plays. Also, that team – not to say we had a lot of problems – had a couple conflicts between players that we wanted to take care of before the coaches had to.”

Corey, who coached kickers, defensive backs and quarterbacks for Perrone’s 1970 team, is mindful of his unique status as a bridge between three of Brewer’s most successful programs in the last 36 years. Although he’s proud of it, he doesn’t talk a lot about it.

“It’s nice because you have different perspectives. I have it as a player, I have it as a young coach, and now as an offensive coordinator,” he said. “Early on in the season, we might have brought some of that stuff up, but lately we’ve held it back, not because we don’t like to talk about the old days, but because it gives them a chance for their own identity, and it was nice to be a part of it.”