PREVIEWING THE SEASON … Archbold football coach Dave Dominique (right) told Rotarians that the Bluestreak offensive and defensive lines will be strengths of the 2023 Bluestreaks with three, 3-year starters returning on both sides of the line. The August 18 program was arranged by Rotarian Royal Short (left).
AHS grad Dave Dominique is starting his ninth season as the Bluestreaks’ head coach after serving three years as an assistant.
Following last year’s season, which ended on a down note with two of the team’s three losses coming in the last two games, he explained the team and his staff did what they do every year – identify one thing that they would like to improve on during the off-season.
He recently told Archbold Rotarians that he was a bit surprised at how clearly one area for improvement was identified by the team as a whole: leadership development.
Consequently, he explained that he created a leadership council that met twice a week before the start of the school day for five weeks.
The meetings were open to anyone who was on last year’s team and focused on what leadership means and what it takes to be a leader.
Community leaders as well as past athletes discussed leadership during part of each meeting. He noted that a large percentage of last year’s team attended the leadership council meetings.
It’s a class that the school system intends to offer to students during the coming school year. Dominique told Rotarians that the team’s three goals this fall are the same as always: beat Wauseon, win the league championship, and qualify for the playoffs.
As the season opened, Archbold had 64 players on the varsity roster, including 22 seniors.