HSFT20 Stop #8 — Hamilton Lions

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HAMILTON, Miss. (WCBI) — When head coach Wade Pierce arrived in Hamilton in 2019, he set out to turn the Lion’s football program around.

As the saying goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a state championship-caliber team.

In a tough 1A division, Piece knows the key to moving his team in the right direction is adding competitive effort.

“We have to learn to compete with these guys and give our best effort, game in and game out, no matter who we’re playing,” Pierce said. “We play some of the toughest teams in 1A football. I know it’s difficult to prepare for some of those guys especially last year when we didn’t know our personnel great.”

“I feel like we’re up for the challenge,” senior OL/DL Zachary Crawford said. “They’re some pretty good ball teams but I feel like we’re going to give them a run for their money this year.”

The biggest question right now that Pierce and his squad must answer is, how do you teach competitiveness?

“You can’t coach effort. Whenever the guys bring effort every single day the competitiveness comes along with it. Last year, we had some guys who had to learn to give that effort. I think we’re starting to see more and more the guys are starting to bring their lunch pail, coming to work, and realizing if we want to get this going in the right direction this is what it’s going to take,” Pierce said.

“We out working every day trying to get better and I feel like that if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll be straight,” junior WR/DB Kaden Smith said.

In his first season, Pierce was working with a young team. Now that the Lions bring back a whole host of players, Hamilton looks to fill some of its missing holes with some experience.

“We return pretty much everybody up front on offense. We lost one guy and its going to be a big loss on the offensive line, but we have some guys who are willing to step in and fill his spot. On defense, we bring back eight of our eleven starters. So we bring back just about everybody. Offensively we’re going to have to find a quarterback and a running back and those are the two most important positions on offense. We have some guys I think are ready to step in and fill their shoes,” Pierce said.

“Last year, when we put all those younger guys in I wasn’t necessarily expecting what I got out of them,” senior MLB Sam Robinson. “A lot of them stepped up and they didn’t necessairly do a lot just because it was their first year but I think this year, they’ll really step up and show us what they got.

Hamilton will look to bring that competitive energy when they hit the gridiron for the Lions season opener on August 21st.