GUILDERLAND — The Guilderland Dutchmen are starting the football season with a lot of new faces, including the main guy on the sideline.

Dan Penna has taken over the head coaching duties for Pete Schwan, who resigned the post in December.

Penna had been an assistant coach for the Dutchmen the past six years.

He will be joined by many new athletes as well.
"We have tons of kids that are returning to football," Penna said. "They haven’t played in a while. Tim Montgomery came out and he’ll see some time at halfback and Kevin Doherty will be in the backfield. We also have a good core of juniors and three sophomores that are coming up."

The new guys will have to replace a talented group of seniors who graduated last year.
"They were a great bunch of kids," Penna said. "The Class of ’05 was great. We had a lot of size and we lost a thousand-yard rusher in Chris Paratore. We lost Joey Wyld on line and we lost a great leader in Josh Miller. We had three seniors play in the all-star game, in Phil Durand, Paratore, and Wyld."

‘Learning a lot’

With the loss of those players comes a change in philosophy for the offense. The Dutch don’t have as much size up front, so they are going to count on something else during the season.
"One of the reasons we are changing our offense is because of speed," Penna said. "We don’t have as much size as we’ve had in the past. We want to use speed to our advantage."

The Dutch have two returning starters from last year’s line in center John D’Ambrosio and guard Kyle Hussey.
"We are all learning a lot," Penna said. "We are putting in the new offense. We’re putting in changes and working on team chemistry. Some players are developing into leaders."

The players are not the only ones who are learning.
"The coaches are learning or doing a drill for the first time," Penna said. "We’re teaching kids the right way to do the things they need to do."

The team also has a couple of mottos, Penna said. He said that the players demand excellence in everything that they do and they strive to be perfect.
"If they work at everything they do," Penna said, "they have a better chance to be successful."

Penna said that there are 47 kids on the team this year with a good group of juniors joining many of the new faces.
"The team is looking good," said one returning senior, John D’Ambrosio. "We have a lot of guys and a lot of good athletes. We don’t have size anymore, we have to rely on our athletic ability and speed."
"We’ve come together well as a team," added returning junior Kyle Hussey.

Leadership council
Penna and the Dutch are trying something different as they have not picked captains to lead the squad on a full-time basis. The Dutch will still have game captains, who will be picked based on performance in practice. But Penna has created what he calls a "leadership council" to lead the team.

The nine-member council includes players with experience and new players to the varsity.
"We decided on it and it seems better on and off the field," D’Ambrosio said. "We have guys that represent different parts of the team instead of having two guys winning a popularity contest."

On the leadership council are seniors Judd Robinson, D’Ambrosio, Tim Montgomery, Greg Buck, Chris Wolfe and juniors Hussey, Greg Barcomb, Nick Zanotta, and Kevin Forbes.
"The guys are very competitive and are beginning to buy into the concepts of hard work and discipline," Penna said.

Class AA has been split into two divisions from the three that were in place last year. Guilderland is in the same division as Shenendehowa, Troy, Christian Brothers Academy, Columbia, Colonie, and Bethlehem. Guilderland also plays Ballston Spa from the other Class AA division.

The Dutch have a scrimmage scheduled for Saturday at Niskayuna, which will include Scotia and Schalmont.

Guilderland opens the regular season against long-time rival Shenendehowa on Sept. 2.
"We want to get out on a good note and start with a bang," D’Ambrosio said. "We are having fun and we want to win. We want to have a winning season and earn respect for the program."