Southwestern's first win took a little while in coming, but last week the Pirates finally got off the schneid. Southwestern athletics photo

Think back to freshman year: the excitement and anticipation mingled with reservation and uncertainty. In some cases, there was even a little bit of fear.

But sophomore year typically brings something entirely different. Confidence and familiarity are staples, friendships have been forged, and students have found their place on campus.

That same emotional arc is true of a fledgling football team.

Berry, Hendrix and Southwestern’s football programs didn’t yet exist in 2012, but the groundwork was being laid for their impending initiation in Division III. In 2013, those three programs took the field for the first time in the modern era, and each had its own way of handling the early excitement and uncertainly that comes with being on campus for the first time.

Going into the season last year, the players “were scared to death,” said Southwestern coach Joe Austin, who revived a program that had been dormant since 1950. “They didn’t know what to do or where to go. … They were scared, nervous and tentative.”

Fast-forward to 2014, the second year for these programs. The perspective and atmosphere are at new levels.

“Now that we have so many guys who have a year of experience,” Austin said, “they are a lot more confident in their abilities and the fact that they are bigger and stronger. It was a really different attitude.”

Berry coach Tony Kunczewski said he remembers the high-fives and hugs among players during the first team meeting this past August.

“It’s just a familiarity with one another,” he said, “and the culture of the team has been set whereas a year ago, we had no idea what the culture is going to be.”

Before coming to Berry, Kunczewski spent seven years as the defensive coordinator at LaGrange, including the Panthers’ startup season. He had experience building a team, and he implemented his strategy, which included recruiting the numbers to field a team and sustain a program, while also seeking out top talent.

“I wanted to bring in enough guys so that we have a practice and that the guys would last the whole year,” he said.

Success is a process -- no matter how you measure it. Berry had never had a team before, and it has yet to win a game. This past weekend, the Vikings narrowly missed victory, losing in double overtime to, coincidently, Kunczewski’s former team, LaGrange.

The outcome was different last weekend at Southwestern. Austin and his squad strung together 21 unanswered points on Saturday to earn the Pirates’ first collegiate victory in more than six decades. The coach said that his players are excited to reach this milestone and to see their efforts translate into something tangible on the scoreboard. However, there’s always a “but.”

“But just because we got one victory doesn’t mean we’re all the way there,” he noted. “Yet it does show that we are going to catch people and be more competitive as we get older.”

The most successful of Division III’s newest programs has been Hendrix, which started its first season with a thrilling last-second field goal to beat Westminster (Mo.) and went on to beat Berry and Southwestern. This year, the Warriors have started the season 2-0, winning more convincingly than they did last fall.

Said coach Justin “Buck” Buchanan coming off that first season: “We were competitive all year, went into the offseason with that mentality, and we didn’t have a hole to climb out of.”

Buchanan, who was part of Louisiana College during its startup season a decade and a half ago, also had a strategy for creating lasting success. And, in a way, he was largely thinking small.

“We wanted to start small last year and build into what we were going to become just to get more reps. … The payoff would be better in the long run,” he said.

He said that of the 48 players that finished camp in 2013, he has 40 of them back this year. And the total team numbers are hovering around 80. He said it was easier to manage and build relationships for the young program if the number of players was limited. Everyone was able to stay engaged. In part, he credits that with helping the team avoiding taking steps sideways or backwards going into the second season.

He also notes that the school, which last had a football program in 1960, spent years preparing to field a football team, with the right planning, equipment and facilities. Perhaps more than ever before, he said, there was “a long-term plan from where we started and where we wanted to go.”

Berry came within inches of its first varsity win last week vs. LaGrange. Berry athletics file photo

Kunczewski at Berry said that while teams redefine their benchmarks for success in the second season, the challenges shift, for both players and coaches. Recruiting becomes more targeted as the coaching staff identifies what specialties are lacking. Notably, too, competition for playing time intensifies as team numbers grow and players develop and become more experienced.

“We’re finding out right now that some of the guys that were starters a year ago may not necessarily be starters this year.  … [They] are fighting to keep their jobs,” he said. “And that’s a positive thing; it’s not a negative thing.”

He said that because Berry is still so young, he feels that means there’s room to grow and see significant improvement as the season goes on. He saw a startup’s potential when he was at LaGrange – a team that began its football existence going 0-20, then soared to a 9-2 record in its third year in the biggest year-to-year turnaround ever in Division III.

“We are going to hit some bumps in the first couple of years,” he said, “but realistically, you can’t build this thing in a day.”

Still, he said, “In Year 2, we’re not happy just playing it close. We’re trying to win.”

Likewise, Southwestern’s coach talked about the timeline for success. “For the guys who came back, they’re the ones who bought in and knew this was going to be a process and that it’s going to take multiple years to catch people.”

Hendrix’s Buchanan said, “Every time you have success, you build on your past success. ... Our guys have found ways to make things happen and win the emotional parts of games, with the ups and downs.”

All three coaches credit support from around campus and good attendance at football games as helping to boost the football programs. Southwestern, for example, is deep in Texas, where football from the high school level on up can be intense. Having a football program has given fellow students a new reason to rally around the school.

“Our weekends [on campus] are better,” Austin said. “We certainly weren’t a suitcase college before, but it’s gotten even better as far as having things to do and giving students reasons to stay on the weekends.”

In recalling Hendrix’s first 2013 game, at home and with an exciting win over Westminster, Buchanan said it was just the kind of success that the team needed to be fully embraced by the student body.

“We couldn’t have scripted last year’s first victory better than it happened,” he said. “We kicked a [game-winning] field goal with one second left. …

“It was important for everyone on campus to understand that these guys are like us, [but] they just happen to like to play football.”

After all, what’s success without someone to share it with?