WATERVLIET, NY — Watervliet High School Football practices across the street in an open field as the modified team plays a game at the high school on a warm, newly fall day in September.
“The athletic director called me last year and asked my brother and I if we could come back,” said Ryan Job. “I was all for it. We had three days in Tamarac and then we got hit with COVID. When we came back we got four games total. The kids made me want to come back.”
Watervliet Football is going through a transition at the moment. A transformation, if you will. Ryan Job is the new head coach for Watervliet and takes over for his first real, full season after taking over for Pete Porcelli two weeks into Fall II.
Job has one goal: change the culture of Watervliet football.
“Going into this our biggest goal was to teach the kids to not quit when things go wrong,” said Job. “Our next one is self accountability. Those are our two main things that we are trying to change.”
“I want people to remember us as the team that changed the attitude of Watervliet and that’s what Coach is working on,” said Senior Daniel Baughn. “For years and years people have had an attitude of showing up when they want and doing what they want and I do believe that Coach Ryan and the rest of the coaches want to change that as bad as I do. I can’t thank them enough for doing that.”
Job comes in with plenty of experience with the Canoneers. He was on Porcelli’s staff in 2019 and has been around the local football scene as a player and head coach at the semi-professional level.
“I was around him for a while and he coached me in high school,” said Job of Porcelli. “I was a Catholic Central kid and he did a year there before he went to Lansingburgh and I went to Bishop Maginn. I run the Irish team in Troy and Pete came on there for five years and coached.”
The 2021 Watervliet team is finding success right now with a 3-1 record after Saturday afternoon’s 44-20 win over Catskill/Cairo-Durham and the team has a lot of talent. Quarterback Jamel Ward is growing confident under center as a junior, Amel Conway is a giant wide out with hands and speed, and seniors like Dan Baughn are fully committed to the team.
“We have great coaches this year. Everything is new and we are working as hard as we possibly can to get stuff done,” said Baughn. “Coach came in last year during the COVID spring season and he stepped in and really helped us out. Without him we probably wouldn’t have had a season.”
“We have great receivers,” said Job on his offensive weapons like Conway and Adonis Cyrus. “Cyrus has been in the slot but now you see everyone moving to Amel because he is huge and he can catch and he is a basketball guy that can jump. It’s great for us.”
Kendryek Flynn and Naheem Pinckney have split the bulk of the ground game because of the different skill sets that each pose.
“I didn’t play against Cobleskill but I was able to get in against Voorheesville. It was a tough game. We had little mistakes but we are cleaning them up,” said Pinckney. “The third game we won. We were making some mistakes, it didn’t happen as often, but we are cleaning stuff up every week.”
Job and his staff are one of the few teams in Section II that made it mandatory for players and staff to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The decision deterred a lot of players from signing up in 2021.
“We have light numbers this year,” said Job. “31, which is good because it is better than I thought we would have with the vaccine. We had 60 kids signed up for modified through grade nine and the vaccine came down and cut that down to the mid-30’s.”
Those numbers are in Job’s favor as he rebuilds a Watervliet program that last claimed a Class C sectional in 2008.
Helping Job with his passion project at Watervliet football is a slew of talented, young coaches who can connect and teach the Watervliet team because they have come from similar situations. Tony Murray, Zack Deering, Marcus Hepp, Gabe Smith, Wayne Hansbury, Zay Gordon, Cory Viscosi, Nat Conlen, Rod Dukes, Tyler Ronan, and AJ Passenella have all joined Job to help build the program in the right direction.
Deering, a Ravena and UAlbany Football alum, played with, and for, Job with the Troy Fighting Irish. Now the two have united to coach the Canoneers.
“As of right now we are trying to get the kids to realize there is a lot more to it than just football,” said Deering. “They have to realize they have to be good people. They have to be good in school and out of it. They can’t be getting in trouble. Over the passed year what was happening was kids were allowed to skip school and come play football and that’s not happening anymore. That’s not how we were raised and coached and that is the hardest part right there — getting them to buy into that they have to go to school.”
Deering’s ability to have compassion and connect with the Watervliet kids comes from his own life experiences and what he has had to go through to get him to where he is today.
“They are really great kids coming from tough situations,” said Deering. “We have three kids that come from a two parent household and two of those three kids are adopted. The biggest thing is for them to realize that we are here for them, not just as coaches but as mentors and friends. I try to bring everything that I was taught, both positive and negative, and teach it in a positive aspect and bring as much knowledge down from those aspects as I could. I try and get on the same page as these kids.”
Deering went on to say that his upbringing and situation was similar to a lot of the Watervliet players and he felt telling the players about his background and where he comes from allowed the team to build a stronger connection to him.
“I think hearing the stuff I went through and the childhood I had made them think, ‘Coach is just like me,’” said Deering. “They can look at me now as their friend and not just their coach. They can call me or text me on a Saturday morning as a friend and that’s what they do.”
Deering is there for his team. So much so that he went to a game a mere hours after having a four and a half hour surgery on his left arm.
“I had text messages from the players asking me how I was doing and saying they can’t wait to see me,” said Deering. “You don’t get stuff like that from inner city kids if they don’t respect you.”
The players truly are responding to Job, Deering, and the rest of the staff and the happiness is very clearly evident in that big open field across from the high school.
“I like playing for Job,” said Conway. “Everything has been a lot different in the best way. I like the change. I like playing for Job.”
The expectations for the Watervliet Football team have changed over the course of the last six months. A team that didn’t know who their head coach was two weeks into the spring season now has sectional aspirations in their eyes.
“For me personally, football wise, if we can win a sectional game, and we all know that Hudson game at the end of the year will be two tough teams going into Hudson for the division, but if we can come away with a sectional win this year, that’s our goal,” said Job. “These kids can do it.”
Watervliet will look to continue their success against Rensselaer/Loudonville Christian on October 1 at 7 p.m. at Watervliet.
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CHANGING THE CANNONEER CULTURE: Ryan Job and his coaching staff want to change the culture at Watervliet Football - Troy Record
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