The one hundredth Providence Academy football game marks an exciting milestone in PA’s football program.
The centennial football game took place Sept. 25 and was coupled with senior night, where the football seniors walk on the field with their parents and commemorate their time as a player.
Not only does this Season mark the 100th game, but also the tenth year of the program which started in 2005, which Athletic Director Mr. Kurt Jaeger said, “is a cool milestone because it speaks to the longevity of the program”.
The first football game played by PA students took place on Sept. 7 of 2004, but it wasn’t a varsity game, so it’s not included in the 100-game count. Since that first game, the program has come a long way to ensure success as a winning team.
An exciting change that was introduced in the second year of PA’s football history is the co-op with Heritage Christian Academy. This collaboration has been instrumental in the success of the program and has turned out to be important to both schools. With 14 players from their school participating this year, it allows PA to have a successful program as well as making football a sport option to Heritage students.
Another important change made was switching athletic conferences. The conference has changed several times and has finally landed on the IMAC conference.
Henry Van Dellen ‘16 said this has, “created a conference that has teams like us with equal educational, religious and athletic goals. We used to have teams like DeLaSalle in our Tri-Metro Conference, but they are a much bigger team so we changed the conference to create more equal competition.”
Mr. Jaeger agrees and said the conference change, “landed us with the right level of competition and started a winning tradition”.
This winning tradition has lasted the last seven seasons, and there hasn’t been a losing record in the regular season since 2008. This year’s football team is excited to be able to defend this tradition, as well as play in such an important game.
Gavin Blomberg ‘17 said, “I am super excited to play in the 100th game and be a part of this huge step for the program”.
This is a big step for the program, especially seeing where they started. Now the players are able to play in a multi million dollar sports complex, in front of hundreds of fans.