As expected, New Canaan High School football coach Lou Marinelli said this morning that Willie Ouelette will start at quarterback for tomorrow night’s opener against Bassick and that Turner Baty, who transferred to the school last week, will get a series or two.
Ouelette, who is taking over for Nate Quinn, practiced with the team during the entire offseason and at the team’s various camp appearances.
Baty, a senior who enrolled at New Canaan five days ago, passed for 1,800 yards at Menlo-Atherton High School in California last season. His father, Greg, is a former NFL tight end. Baty is 6-foot-2, 205 pounds and reportedly has an offer from Stanford and has drawn interest from Tennessee and Miami.
Marinelli said he plans on using Baty, who hardly knows the Rams’ offense yet, for a series or two to see how he looks.
If Baty eventually wins the starting job, the biggest concern for Marinelli will be how the rest of his players, who are loyal to Ouelette, will react. Marinelli said Ouelette has been going out of his way this week to bond with Baty and help him get up to speed.
(Rick Lewis, who is in his 32nd year as Westhill High School’s girls swimming coach, will be blogging about his experiences this season)
By Rick Lewis
It’s that time again. School has begun and with it all the fall activities and sports. Coaches have just completed selecting their teams and the games/meets are beginning.
It is never an easy time. It is difficult to select a team. As a coach you deal with space limitations due to facilities, uniforms, specific sport restrictions and coaching staffs. You would like to have everyone that wants to be on the team participate, but know that is not possible. You need to select what you perceive to be the best team.
You want everyone you choose to be able to contribute. If they cannot why are they on the team? You also want to keep anyone that may grow and be able to contribute a year or two from now. You are looking for talent and commitment.
We are now moving past that and into the initial contests, which will say a lot as to which teams will be the strongest. In a league as strong as the FCIAC, average is not where you want to be. Teams and athletes need to strive to be exceptional. Otherwise you just are not competitive.
That means a lot of time and hard work as the athletes and team establish goals for the season and strive to achieve those goals. This can be difficult with all the anxiety that goes along with the school work, college visits and holidays that the fall brings.
But the effort is worth it and everything can get done (even though you might not think so at times). If you are having trouble, talk to your coaches. They will understand and maybe even be able to help you with your difficulties. Communication is the key to everything and one of those lifetime skills that everyone needs to learn.
So, let’s put in the work and all get off to a fast start this season!
Khairi Fortt, Stamford High School’s highly coveted senior linebacker, plans to announce his college decision early next month.
And unless something drastic happens between now and then, Fortt said he knows where he is headed.
Fortt is supposed to be honored at a ceremony in early October, where he said he will be awarded his jersey for the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, which takes place in January. Fortt said he plans on using that occasion in Stamford to disclose his plans.
Fortt visited Georgia this past weekend and attended the Bulldogs’ 41-37 win over South Carolina. He had lunch at the house of Georgia coach Mark Richt.
Fortt, who has over 30 scholarships offers, has narrowed his list down to six schools, though he admitted last week that Penn State, Georgia and North Carolina were the frontrunners.
With all the talk about Fortt’s future, he will start making a statement about his present Thursday night, when the Black Knights open the season at home against Ridgefield.
For those who have been in hiding and not familiar with his story, here is a great six-minute piece on Fortt by Prep Ticket.
With the high school sports season kicking off tomorrow (I’ll be at Staples High School for the defending FCIAC boys soccer champion’s opener against Westhill), it is time to see if there is enough interest out there in blog-land to expand the use of social networking with high school sports.
I’m happy to use Twitter to post updates, break news or provide extra tidbits with more immediacy than this blog.
I just got off the phone with New Canaan High School football coach Lou Marinelli, who for the first time addressed his quarterback situation in light of the transfer of Turner Baty, who enrolled at the school on Friday.
Baty, a senior, passed for 1,800 yards at Menlo-Atherton High School in California last season. His father, Greg, is a former NFL tight end. Baty is 6-foot-2, 205 pounds and reportedly has an offer from Stanford and has drawn interest from Tennessee and Miami.
Baty, according to Marinelli, started this season at a school in Florida, but is moving with his family to New Canaan to be closer to his mother, who works for ESPN. Greg Baty is good friends with former NFL quarterback Terry Hanratty, whose son Conor is a junior tackle for the Rams.
Marinelli said he has known about the possibility of Baty transferring for about a week, has met him several times and will see him workout for the first time today.
“I haven’t seen the kid practice at all,” Marinelli said. “I hear he’s good. He seems like a nice kid. But I haven’t seen him do anything yet.”
If Baty is as good as advertised, he will certainly give the Rams a better chance at going after their fourth straight state championship and second consecutive FCIAC title.
There is also the possibility that Baty’s presence could prove a divisive element. Willie Ouelette, who is scheduled to take over for Nate Quinn, has worked with the team all offseason, which includes attending numerous camps, and is scheduled to start this week’s opener against Bassick.
“Right now I have my starting quarterback,” Marinelli said of Ouelette. I have to wait until I see something else. A new quarterback is like a new player at any other position. He will have a chance.”
A reliable source who has spoken to several New Canaan players said they are unhappy about the situation and throwing their support behind Ouelette. That could also be a knee-jerk reaction.
“I’d be very disappointed in my kids if they said that,” Marinelli said. “I wouldn’t want them to say that about any kid who came into the program, at any position. I’ll deal with it.”
Asked about whether he feared losing the locker room if Baty wins the starting spot, Marinelli said, “If in fact that happens we are going to have to deal with that with the people we have. Things like this happen in all lines of work. Right now we are dealing with hypotheticals.”
Marinelli said he has not yet discussed the situation with Ouelette, who will also start at cornerback.
“Let’s deal with that when we can,” Marinelli said. “Willie put in his time. He’s been a loyal shoulder, but any player can lose his starting spot. Life isn’t always fair. I am going to do whatever is best for the team. I’m going to go with the quarterback that makes the most sense for our team.”
Marinelli is handling a stick situation the only way he can. Whether his players will see it the same way remains to be seen.
Less than a week before its season opener against Bassick, the New Canaan High School football team could be looking at a potential controversy.
As first reported by Tim Parry on his FCIAC Football Blog, Turner Baty, a senior quarterback who is being recruited by some major Division I programs, enrolled at New Canaan yesterday.
Baty passed for 1,800 yards at Menlo-Atherton High School in California last season. Depending on what website you believe, Baty, whose father, Greg, is a former NFL tight end, is somewhere between 6-1 and 6-3 and weighs somewhere between 195-210 pounds. He also reportedly has an offer from Stanford and has drawn interest from Tennessee and Miami.
There is not a lot of information out there yet and I have been unable to reach New Canaan coach Lou Marinelli today.
I did talk to someone who has spoken to a few New Canaan players, and they apparently are not happy about the situation and are rallying around Willie Ouelette, who is scheduled to be the Rams’ quarterback this season.
This is a situation that has the potential to develop into a story arc on Friday Night Lights.
New Canaan probably does more offseason work and goes to more camps than any school in the area, so Ouelette, who is taking over for Nate Quinn, has developed a close bond with a team that, like a year ago, has very few starters returning.
One also has to assume that Greg Baty did not just move his family into a town where his son was going to sit on the bench, and that Tyler Baty’s arrival on campus yesterday did not come as a surprise to Marinelli.
If Baty is the better player, what will be the mood in the New Canaan locker room if he starts? If he does start, and win, will that pacify his teammates?
There are a whole lot of ifs right now, and not many certainties. With an easy opener against Bassick, Marinelli would have nealy two weeks to get Baty ready for the Rams’ game against New Canaan on Sept. 25.
Again, until more information becomes available anything at this point is speculation and guess work. But this is certainly a situation worth watching.
(Cayleigh Griffin, a senior on the Trinity Catholic High School volleyball team, will be blogging about her experiences this season.)
By Cayleigh Griffin
As my teammates are off at school, working hard in the classroom and on the court, I am stuck in bed for the third day in a row with what seems to be a mild case of the flu. Although I just want to get to school officially (did I really say that….) and go back to practice, it is not worth the risk of infecting my classmates, especially my teammates.
This past weekend, our team had the opportunity to scrimmage King, Stamford, Barlow and Greenwich.We definitely have a few kinks to work out, but our overall progress is moving in the right direction.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how effective our communication worked on the court.This enabled us to find open spots, pass successfully and choose the type of hit that would position the ball for perfect placement. Every player in the rotation was instrumental in this effort to communicate.
In one of our matches, the team seemed to be wilting under the pressure from our opponent. Nothing we did seemed to be effective for us and the frustration could be read on all of our faces and in our body language.
At the conclusion of that match, Coach Marge introduced the idea of crafting a cheer. If you are unfamiliar with volleyball, this may be new to you, but cheering tends to play a significant role during games.
Although cheering can change the mood and momentum of a game, it has not been embraced at Trinity Catholic for many years. So with a few raised eyebrows, we reluctantly listened, decided to give it a shot, and ultimately embraced the idea.
Prior to the next match, the six seniors on the court came up with a creative “cheer,” with a twist. It seemed a little corny at first but our bench added clapping and chants.
To our collective surprise, we played much better once our cheers started. While our “cheer” needs a little refining, it pumped everyone up, our attitudes lightened and our focus shifted back to the task at hand….winning the match!
If you are curious about the cheer that lifts our spirits, I would encourage and highly suggest that you attend a game to find out! I’m off to make a bowl of soup, but our season opener is next week – GO TC VOLLEYBALL!!
Khairi Fortt’s life has become a circus ever since the spring, when strong performances at camps and combines elevated him into one of the top college prospects in the country. Fortt, Stamford High School’s dynamic linebacker, has received offers from over 30 schools. He will make his first official visit to Georgia on Friday.
While Fortt has narrowed his list down to six schools, he will likely make his decision very shortly and disclose it sometime thereafter. It will be an upset if he does not eventually end up at Penn State, which was the early favorite, Georgia or North Carolina, two schools whose stocks soared after unofficial visits this summer.
While Fortt has been dealing with the endless schedule of interviews with the press and non-stop communications from colleges, he has been trying to prepare for the Black Knights’ season-opener against Ridgefield next week and staying on schedule to graduate early, in January.
Oh, and Fortt will be a guest blogger this fall to provide us with an inside look at his harried life.
I caught up with Fortt before practice today to discuss how he manages to fit 36 hours of activity into a 24-hour day.
