By Ryan Tipps
D3sports.com
GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- You can tell Barry Streeter is still passionate about football even after 31 years at the helm of the same program.
The Gettysburg coach skillfully balances his intensity. He comfortably rocks back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, as he talks about the lessons he hopes his players take away from the program. But then he also draws you in closer, leaning forward and making eye contact, when he talks about his career with the Bullets and some of the fiery games he’s been through.
He’s now a man of 60, far removed from 1978 when he rose up from defensive coordinator to the head coaching job. Division III was in its infancy then, barely half a decade since its creation. Teams such as Bucknell and Lehigh were regulars on the schedule. The Gettysburg squad Streeter inherited hadn’t had a winning season in eight years.
Barry Streeter's Gettysburg Bullets are coming off back-to-back 5-3 seasons in the Centennial Conference, their first winning seasons in-conference of the millennium. Photo by Steve Ickes for D3sports.com |
At only 29 years old, his blood was racing.
At the time, “I was too young to be nervous. I was so fired up,” Streeter said in his office last week.
“I remember that first day. … The phone’s ringing like crazy, and it’s all for me. I’m like, ‘Wait a minute.’ There’s no where else to pass this thing. I’ve got it. … There’s so many details that you don’t think about.”
From that moment, “It’s all on me.”
Streeter wasn’t expecting to become such a prominent part of Gettysburg football history. After graduating from Lebanon Valley, he spent time coaching high school and was a graduate assistant at Delaware. He liked the big leagues, and thought just maybe that’s where his career path would take him.
“The plan was, like most young coaches’ plans, was OK, I’m going to do a good job here and go to the next level,” Streeter said.
Youth has a way of being ambitious. Streeter admits to thinking that, just in his 20s, he already had all the answers. He had some years of coaching under his belt. And his hiring came just after his birthday -- a present, of sorts, and a step of good fortune. He sought bigger, and, in his young mind, better.
“Did I have that itch? I had that itch a lot for many years -- not because I wanted to leave here but because you want to coach the best kids, coach the highest level,” he said.
He entertained the idea of jobs at places such as Maine and Rutgers, but he had a wife and four kids who had become firmly entrenched in their south central Pennsylvania town.
“The people here have been great to me,” Streeter said. “The school is a unique place, and it’s a great place to raise a family. …
“Once we got the program going in the right direction, and some opportunities started rolling in, my kids were getting into junior and senior high school. … I guess what I was doing was keeping my family in mind.”
His dedication to the Gettysburg football has paid off. He sparked a turnaround in the program’s momentum in the early years of his career. From 1982, Streeter gleefully relives his team’s 17-10 home win over defending national champion Widener. With the score tied at 10, Gettysburg fumbled on its own 30 with about 90 seconds left. Widener’s speed took over, moving quickly down to the 3 yard line before a freshman safety from Gettysburg recovered a loose ball and put the team in scoring position. The offense reached the end zone in two plays, earning the home team a win, the biggest of Streeter’s career at the time.
A year after that Widener game, the Bullets won the football-only Centennial Conference the first year it was in existence. Then in 1985, Streeter said he fielded his best team ever, which beat Lycoming and Salisbury State in the playoffs before losing in the semifinals to Ithaca. That was the deepest any Centennial team has ever made it in the postseason.
Over the years, he found that it has always been difficult to be a head coach. Division III boasts a wide diversity of schools, keeping competition -- both from a recruiting standpoint, and on the field -- high.
He noted that recruiting doesn’t get harder with age; it gets easier with experience.
“I think I relate to [the players] well; I really believe that. They know I’m honest with them, they know I care about them. What I tell the parents is that I’m going to treat your son just like I do my own.”
Treating them like his own means advising them as needed, but it can also mean laying down the law and making sure that the players are bringing to the field integrity, which is Streeter’s core philosophy for his athletes. And, with more than half his life invested in the school, he’s certain not to let his spark dim any.
Streeter said, “I’m 60. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like. What I thought it was supposed to feel like, it doesn’t click. I have energy and passion and motivation. That’s what you need. If I don’t have it, I’ll know it.”
But he’s got plenty of people keeping him on his toes, just in case he doesn’t recognize a downturn. “I’ve told my coordinators every year, ‘If you think I’ve lost a step or don’t have the enthusiasm or the insight or motivation … just let me know.’ ”
Though the coach might complain about how his team played on Saturday, he’s not one to complain about the job itself. Even if he wanted to, is there time? “The way this profession goes, you’re on a treadmill. Your days just fly.”
But even as he flies through his years, he’s making what he believes is an important and lifelong impact on his players. He said he has the names of about 400 former athletes in his contact list, and during the season, he keeps them all in the loop come Monday mornings.
“I firmly believe that if they graduate from Gettysburg having been through our program, they get something extra,” Streeter said of his players, both past and present. “That’s what we want, to be part of the education.”
A lot of Streeter’s motivation comes from his beliefs, his perceptions of what his players are, what they can be and how they impact those around them. He works hard to judge players’ mental approach to the game, something he said has gotten harder over the years. But knowing that means knowing whether his team is driven to come out of the locker room ready to play. For a team that began this season much like it did the last one, at 0-3, he understands that getting people to subscribe to his vision week in and week out can be difficult.
And part of his job is to develop the students, something he’s motivated to do.
“You got to coach with your own personality. You can’t be somebody else. You got to be you,” he said. “And if that personality is something that the kids can rally around, that’s good.”
Parents ask him all the time if he’s going to stick around, if he’s going to retire. He said he has no plans to move beyond this football team that he has shared so much of himself with. Here, he has been through the agonies and the ecstasies with his team for 31 years. Of all the things that have changed, this isn’t one of them:
“The wins are real good, and the losses still hurt as much as they always have.”
Saturday’s 20-3 score doesn’t do Gettysburg’s dominance justice. As the rain descended at Musselman Stadium, the 0-3 Bullets were lining up against a Muhlenberg team that was coming off a significant victory against Union the week before.
But almost from the start, it was evident who had the firepower and who was sputtering.
Jamel Mutunga led the team in receptions and rushing yards in Gettysburg's win against Muhlenberg. Photo by Steve Ickes for D3sports.com |
Despite the score being 3-3 at the half, Gettysburg was showing dominance through the first 30 minutes of play, compiling 270 yards in that time. Muhlenberg struggled to generate much offense, and even the Mules’ typically sharp defense had troubles. At least two passes that should have been intercepted bounced out of Muhlenberg’s hands during the day.
Argue as you may about how much of a factor the rain played in those near turnover, but Gettysburg didn’t have much trouble drawing in the receptions as needed. Senior quarterback Matt Flynn floated several pass just over defenders’ heads, hitting his receivers in stride and making overachieving look easy in the over-the-shoulder catches.
Much as fans had seen with Gettysburg in Week 1 against Gettysburg, the team played its best after halftime. The opener against Lebanon Valley was one of the biggest rallies in school history, which turned a 41-14 halftime deficit into a narrow 47-42 loss. On Saturday, the Bullets again found their stride after the break and pulled away from Muhlenberg with little expectation that the opponent could keep up.
Flynn finished the day with 325 yards passing. Rusher Jamel Mutunga had 91 yards, and Charles Curcio reached the end zone twice, once each rushing and receiving. On the other side of the ball, junior defensive end Matt Coffey had two sacks and a forced fumble.
After the game, chants and cheers emerged from the locker room of a rowdy Gettysburg team, who pounded on the lockers as fans stood around smiling, certainly happy that the Bullets lived up to the potential that’s otherwise been elusive all year.
The northern and eastern sector
Last year’s Salisbury/St. John Fisher game as memorable by the multiple overtimes and 110 points scored. This year’s will be memorable for the Gulls after scoring 35 or their 38 points in the second half to propel themselves to a 38-20 win on Saturday. Though Salisbury held Fisher to minus-44 yards rushing, Fisher didn’t necessarily struggle to move the ball, getting 359 yards from passing. Defensively, seven Gulls players logged tackles behind the line of scrimmage.
Beyond the Gettysburg-Muhlenberg game, the Centennial matchups were heavily lopsided feats -- Dickinson 35-7 over McDaniel; Johns Hopkins 27-0 over Moravian; and Franklin and Marshall 34-7 over Juniata. The top pack appears to be separating itself, and some big games are on the horizon (one of which will be talked about in this column next week). Dickinson was led on the ground and through the air by Ian Mitchell, who became the school’s first quarterback to surpass 4,000 yards throwing. JHU held the Greyhounds to just 95 yards of total offense. In F&M’s win, quarterback John Harrison threw for 317 yards and connected with wideout George Eager for 141 yards and three touchdowns.
Wesley made short work of LaGrange with a 56-7 win down in Georgia. Junior Shane McSweeney connected for four end zone strikes. Highlighting the Panthers’ struggles against Wesley’s defense was the 21 yards rushing the team tallied on the day. LaGrange even had one kickoff return to inside Wesley’s 10-yard line but still couldn’t come away with any points after three incomplete passes and a missed field goal. Five Wesley players had interceptions to make matters worse for the home team.
Virginia on down
In the battle of the Mike Clark coaches, Bridgewater held off defending MAC champion Lycoming 32-29 at home. The Eagles were wounded by turnovers but still managed 337 yards of offense in the rain. Defensively, senior Jeremy Lewis logged eight tackles, including two sacks that totaled 19 yards.
Averett has been a team that has flown a little under my radar this year, perhaps wrongly so as the team advanced to 2-1 with a win over Washington and Lee on Saturday. The Cougars defense allowed just 184 yards on the day, including zero rushing yards in the second half. Anthony Squillini was the point man through the air, bringing in two touchdown catches and tallying 87 yards.
Christopher Newport’s struggles on offense continued Saturday, as a halftime lead slipped away in a 24-17 loss at home to undefeated Wilkes. CNU struggled to find a rhythm at quarterback with senior Matt Long sidelined by injury. One of his replacements was freshman Christian Woelfel-Monsivais, who went 7-for-10 with a solid 139 yards, but he also had two picks in that span. Sophomore quarterback Antonio Epps also saw time, but his highlight came on the ground with a 19-yard touchdown run.
Hampden-Sydney made its debut in conference play with a 31-6 win over Guilford that saw a notable rushing effort by sophomore Kirk Rohle, who had 151 yards and two touchdowns. On defense, free safety Bill Doody impressed with two interceptions for 76 yards, three pass breakups and a fumble recovery.
Contact me
I would be happy to hear from anyone who has questions or feedback regarding the Around the Mid-Atlantic column or Division III football in general. Please write to me at ryan.tipps@d3sports.com. I’m sure that I missed some highlights in the region. I invite you to talk about players and performances on the message board’s Around the Mid-Atlantic thread. Additionally, if there is an idea you’d like to see me write about, post it there or email me.
