The legendary Marty Criswell, the mustachioed man who left Denison with 89 wins in his back pocket, seven district championships, a magical 29-game winning streak, and of course, the epic 16-0 march to the 1984 state championship that was culminated with a 27-13 win over Tomball.
In the two or three occasions that I've mentioned the similarities between himself and Criswell, Rogers has smile and scoffed at the notion.
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| While Chad Rogers scoffs at comparisons to Marty Criswell, he likes where his team is at right now as compared to a year ago. |
"I've got a LONG way to go before you can even think about comparing me to Coach Criswell in any way," says Rogers. "He made it great to be a Yellow Jacket. I'm just the latest coach around here who has only two wins on the board."
Exactly as Criswell did after his first season at the helm of the Yellow Jackets. Like Rogers' 2-8 campaign of a year ago, Criswell was 2-8 his first season.
That was followed by a tremendous off-season effort, a culture change if you will, where the Jackets started the in-house transformation from being a losing door-mat program during the 1970s to one of the state's powerhouse programs over the next 30 years.
With that as a backdrop, it has been fascinating for me to watch this off-season as Rogers has gone about implementing change designed to bring back what Denison has been known for over the past three decades.
A tremendously difficult off-season program that brings back a physicality to the game. A winner's mentality that never gives up and never quits. A team first approach that fosters laughter and chemistry in the locker room. And a refusal to lose and accept any excuses.
So much so that the latter - "No Excuses" - is embroidered onto the back of this year's version of the DHS sideline coach's hat.
Will all of this be enough? Enough to reinvent a historic program that has fallen on hard times with a three-year run of 2-8, 3-7, and 2-8 seasons?
Rogers is quick to point out that the proof will be on the field in a few weeks as Denison opens the 2013 regular season. And even more so a few Friday nights later when District 13-4A play begins.
But so far, two and a half weeks into the 2013 fall camp,, he likes what he sees as compared to a year ago.
"I don't like to compare daily or yearly stuff and I don't compare teams (to other teams)," said Rogers. "(But) I know that I really feel good about where we're at."
Last year, Rogers and his staff had barely unpacked the moving boxes before it was time to tee it up and hit the gridiron.
A few days into that season, as the results began to show on the field, Rogers was already making a mental checklist about what needed to happen in Denison between then and now.
That checklist is what has fueled a tremendously difficult off-season of workouts. In fact, some of the Jackets' home-grown coaches have privately opined that this off-season was as difficult as any they had ever been around.
That's saying something.
Change and adjustment is evident all over the map of the program. Tweaking of personnel and of coaching assignments has come. In fact, the player roster and the coaching staff are noticeably different from a year ago.
From the outside looking in, the weeks that have come and gone since that thudding season ending loss to McKinney North last November remind this writer of another era.
The one when Criswell brought new life and new blood to the DHS football program in the early 1980s. An era of change that forever altered the face of Denison football.
Will history repeat itself? Rogers shrugs, smiles, and says the proof is in the pudding.
Or more accurately, on the scoreboard.
"Hopefully I've done a better job as a head coach," said Rogers. "There are some things that I should have done a better job with last year."
"We've got a very historic program, one of the most historic programs in the state of Texas - there are a bunch of those out there in a football state like this," he adds. "We've been down the last three years. We have an opportunity to do something about that."
And he fully expects this year's team to do just that, to do something about what has happened in Denison over the past three years.
"Like I've said, we've got the best kids in the state of Texas (right here) in Denison, Texas," said Rogers. "They work extremely hard. We just really feel good about where our team is right now."
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