WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Coming off a 6-2 season, the Williamsport football team returns nine starters on each side of the ball. The experienced Millionaires are on a mission and Head Coach Chuck Crews says he's got a million-dollar running back in Nasir Hennigan.
"I'm hoping that he is half the player that he wants to be," Coach Crews said. "If he's half the player that he wants to be, he's still going to be a great player."
"It just lets me know that the little things I do don't go unnoticed and when game time comes, they will pay off," Hennigan, a junior running back, said. "I want to have at least 1K this year."
"I'm hoping for 2,000," Crews said. "That's less thinking for me. We're just excited to coach someone who loves to be coached and who loves the game."
Same can be said for the offensive line Hennigan will run behind – one of the best in our area.
"The blessing with that group is that they've been together since 7th grade football," Crews explained. "So any given night you'll have six or seven linemen in your house, which sucks for me, then I got to feed eight guys pancakes."
"Me, Dade (Splain), Avery (Campbell) are such good friends that the chemistry is there," Charles Crews III added. "If the five of us don't do well, then the whole team doesn't do well, but we have come together as a group. We're one line, one heartbeat. So, we just have to help each other out no matter what."
Charles Crews III is one of those linemen and yes, he is the son of head coach Charles Crews Jr. Now being the coach's son is nothing new in football but when that Head Coach is Chuck Crews?
"Sometimes I got to do a couple extra sprints just because he's my dad," the younger Crews said. "Sometimes I've got to roll a little bit because I say something out of line, but other than that, it's a good time."
"He doesn't have the chance to make second and third mistakes," Coach Crews joked. "He won't eat at night. Honestly, Landon, it is probably the toughest thing that I've done since being a coach. The last thing I ever want to is take the fun and the joy of the game away from him for all the joy and fun it's given me and I just want to do right by him."
And right by Super 16 Team Number 2: the Williamsport Millionaires.