Lou Rabito: At Delco Christian, the right attitude comes first, wins later

Given a rare chance to build a high school football program from scratch, Jim Favino set out to create a team-first culture at Delaware County Christian.

That approach included uniformity in uniforms.

All players would wear double-digit numbers.

No player would stand out by wearing a single digit.

No player could lay claim to No. 1, figuratively or literally.

"One of the things we really try to do here is stress the importance of everybody on the team," Favino said.

His son Caleb rushed for 300 yards in the team's milestone first victory. But on this nascent varsity squad, Caleb Favino isn't the No. 1 running back. No one is. Jim Favino says the offense is designed to give equal carries to all three backs in his Wing-T derivative offense.

Favino is preaching and teaching, and his players seem receptive. The Knights are off to a 1-5 start, which seems more impressive when you consider that they reached this point in rather short order.

They started in 2008 with a middle-school team and 32 players, including ninth graders, but only five of the boys had played before. They competed as a junior varsity last year.

Favino would have preferred a JV schedule again this season, but the team's conference, the Bicentennial Athletic League, admits newcomers only every other year, and Favino didn't want the oldest players who started with the program to miss out on a varsity season.

Delco Christian opened with losses to Bristol, Morrisville, and Calvary Christian, getting outscored by 102-36. Then they defeated Jenkintown, 38-35, and lost a 20-16 game to New Hope-Solebury before falling Saturday to Academy of the New Church, 37-7.

"For us, it's more than just winning a game here or there, even winning a lot of games," said Favino, also the dean of high school faculty at the school. "It's about teaching these guys that process of how to be successful, not only on the football field but in life.

"That's why we really wanted to start the program. There were a lot of boys that weren't involved in things. We only had about 25 percent of the boys involved in [fall] sports - soccer, basically. We've been able to double that."

As a small, Class A school, Favino and his staff are building a program on a limited budget.

On school grounds, where banners urge students to "reason critically" and "act biblically," the Knights practice on a 30-yard field with a portable set of goalposts. (They play home games at Marple Newtown.) They dress in the basement of a barn, where one of their players built a locker room as his Eagle Scout project.

They wear pads and carry equipment bags that once belonged to La Salle University. After the Explorers shut down their program in 2007, Favino said, Delco Christian "kind of bartered" for some equipment. Most of the coaches on the staff are volunteers.

To help with expenses, parents pay $250 participation fees.

Like the program, the players are young. Only six seniors are on the 31-man roster, with the rest of the players almost equally divided among freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.

On this team, however, seniority in school and experience on the field don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. Take Bob Hegman, a 6-foot-1, 270-pound senior lineman. He never played football until last year. In fact, he had never participated in organized sports until the spring season of his sophomore year.

"We didn't really have a sport that I was interested in too much," Hegman said. "So I decided to try lacrosse, and I liked the hitting part of that." Seeking more physical play, he went out for JV football.

Hegman said getting the school's first win two weeks ago was "a really good feeling," especially the way it ended. Trailing by three, Jenkintown drove to Delco Christian's 4-yard line before Knights senior Jake White intercepted a pass in the end zone with a half-minute left.

After the victory, senior Jon Wynne, one of the team's captains, presented the game ball to Favino.

Wynne's emotions spilled over.

"I remember just crying," said Wynne, the Eagle Scout, "just remembering how much our team has been through and how much we've built just a brotherhood together and how much Coach has meant to me, not only as a team member but also in my own spiritual growth and growth as a man."