Are These Tigers For Real?

Pole Position Column By Dale Hubler, Times-Union Sports Writer

Did Warsaw's football team really dismantle its first two opponents, Columbia City and Tippecanoe Valley, by a combined score of 68-9?

Were the Fisher Field stands really that populated over an hour before the start of Warsaw's season opener, a game in which the Tigers pummeled Columbia City 33-0?

Did Kim Leasure, father of junior offensive lineman Jarod Leasure, really look at his watch continuosly while he was at work on the day of Warsaw's first game and count down the hours until kickoff? He says he did.

Did the Tigers really go 81 yards in 15 seconds and score a touchdown on the first play from the line-of-scrimmage against Valley last week?

The answer to all of these questions is yes.

Are these Tigers for real? Can a Warsaw football team finally challenge for the Northern Lakes Conference championship?

These are the questions that will be answered tonight when Warsaw opens up its NLC schedule by hosting the 2-0, Class 4A No. 7 Plymouth Rockies, a team that beat the Tigers 30-8 last year and 50-0 in coach Phil Jensen's first year at the helm of the Tigers.

What's going on in Warsaw, a town that has so proudly backed its basketball program since, seemingly, the beginning of time? How could it be that this city, a basketball mecca, could turn into a two-sports town?

What's happening in Warsaw is that four years ago this town hired a man to turn around a program that hasn't won the conference title since it tied with NorthWood in 1992, when Brett Weaver was handling the quarterback duties and a receiver named Billy West was just a sophomore. A program that hasn't beaten conference power NorthWood since 1990. A program that had never won a sectional game. A program that had lost the "W" trophy to Wawasee the previous two years.

In Jensen's tutelage, the Tigers have gone from 2-7 to 6-4 to 5-6 to 2-0 where they are right now. Jensen was hired to turn the program around. Jensen has turned the program around. Under Jensen, Warsaw has won a sectional game, beaten Wawasee for the coveted "W" trophy his first three years, and this year he says the Tigers will challenge for the conference crown.

What makes this so impressive is that two of Warsaw's conference opponents, NorthWood and Concord, are state runners-up. Then there's the seventh-ranked Rockies and the fourth-ranked Goshen Redskins. Throw in feisty Wawasee and Northridge programs, and you have what Jensen calls the best football conference in the state of Indiana.

Something is definitely going on in Warsaw, where gridiron lovers finally have a reason to flock to Fisher Field on those cold, see-your-breath Friday nights.

There's a reason why former Tiger players Esquivel and Robbie Boley were in attendance at Warsaw's season opener. There's a reason why Jack Engler, whose sons Josh and Jarred both wore the orange and black, still buys tickets to watch the Tigers. There's a reason why current Tiger quarterback Greg Seiss threw for more than 400 yards in the first two games of the season. And there's a reason why Dave Baumgartner came back to help coach the Tigers, after he hung it up when former coach Ted Huber went to Ball State.

That reason is simple: These Tigers are for real.

And they'll continue to prove themselves tonight against the seventh-ranked Rockies. [[In-content Ad]]