The Worcester Tech Eagles varsity football team has been hard at work this season. The team roster consists of over fifty players and five coaches. The Eagles currently sit at 5-5. First-year Head Coach Derek Robbins was hired in mid-April. He is joined by assistant coaches Coach Joe Belsito, Coach Jamie Wiggins, Coach John Lacaire, and Coach Brian Green.
The Worcester Technical Eagles are a senior-heavy team, with about 22 seniors. Craig Martin is one of those seniors. Craig is 18 years old and is in the Carpentry Shop at WTHS. He enjoys playing football and performing in Theater.
Martin has been playing football for the Worcester Technical Eagles since he was a freshman. He is now one of the team captains. “It’s a high honor to be able to lead the team. I always wanted to do it since freshman year,” said Martin.
Alagie Trawally is also a senior on the team. He is age 17, is in the Plumbing Shop and has been playing football since his freshman year. His favorite memory as an Eagle is from his freshman year, his first year playing football. “I didn’t even know how to play football,” he says, but he loved it when the team would be “up in the gym and stuff working out.”
Something both Alagie and Craig have in common is their hope to make the playoffs this year, which would be an exciting paramount to two great football careers at WTHS.
Head Coach Derek Robbins, 44, Marlborough High grad in 1994 and current Clinton resident, was an assistant coach the past six seasons at Westborough and then at West Boylston High. His previous coaching positions were Defensive Coordinator at Westborough High School and then at West Boylston High School. Robbins works full time for the Justice Resource Institute. He also played football in high school for the Westborough High Rangers as a WR and a DB.
Robbins decided to coach “to give back to high school football” because, as he said, “If not for high school football, I would not be the man I am today.”
Robbins says the most rewarding part of coaching is the “relationships and bonds I have built with my players through the years.”
With coaching always comes challenges, whether it is on or off the field. The biggest challenge according to Coach Robbins is “getting all your players to believe in what you are teaching and use that to work together.”
His plans for this year are to establish the building blocks for the football program. Robbins said, “We are committed to establishing a program the entire school community will be proud of.”