A Tour Around the Northern Region

Stuart Coach Bahai Ahmed Hopes to Tap Back Into the Raiders’ History

Eighteenth in a series.

Stuart’s most recent football history isn’t promising. When Coach Bahai Ahmed first joined the Raiders’ staff as an assistant coach six year ago, Stuart was in the midst of what proved a 26-game losing streak.

That, though, is not the history that Ahmed is trying so hard to get his current players to emulate.

Ahmed is instead focused on a past that includes a trip to the state championship game in 1989 and a district title in 1996.

“I’m not originally from this area so I don’t know all of the dynamics,” Ahmed said. “But I do know that there was a time when Stuart had success. They even produced a professional athlete out of this school. In 1989 when they went to the state finals they had Charlie Garner, who went on to play in Philadelphia and Oakland. “But that was the last time they went that far, so it’s been a long while since they’ve tasted success here. So that’s what I’m trying to teach. I’m trying to figure out how to tap back into that history.” Ahmed said his focus has been on teaching his players that winning comes through hard work. “Winning is not an accident,” he said. “You can’t just show up on the field and think you’re supposed to win. And that’s something that I’ve found here at Stuart that they’re still struggling with. The attitude hasn’t quite changed to where I’d like it to be. “I’ve never seen kids struggle as much as last year’s team, even for Stuart. In the past we’ve at least been competitive with the teams we matched up better with. But last year we weren’t competitive with anybody. And we’ve got to change that in a hurry.” The Raiders were shut out six times in 2006 and scored a total of only six touchdowns all season. But it will help that Stuart returns senior quarterback Thinh Trinh (5-9, 220), who missed more than half of last season after dislocating his right, non-throwing shoulder in a game against Yorktown.

Junior Dragos Matei is expected to add size and strength to the Raiders’ offensive line this season.

“Thinh is a returner in the sense that he would have played a lot more last year had he not dislocated his shoulder,” Ahmed said. “He’s not as athletic a quarterback as we’ve had in the past, but he’s a lot more precise about making reads and making plays. We started someone else last year but my thought was that if Thinh made it through the Yorktown game he’d finish out the year for us … but he didn’t survive.

“They were hitting like nobody’s business and he decided to run on them even though I was on the sideline yelling, ‘Bad idea! Bad idea! Just go down, son!’ “

Trinh has recovered from the injury and will lead the Raiders this season as they line up in a spread, shotgun formation.

“We want to take our chances and see what happens if we spread it out,” Ahmed said. “We’ve got no where to go but up.”

Super-Sized

Ahmed is pleased with Stuarts’ size across the offensive line this season, but continues to work on the groups’ strength.

“I wanted our linemen to [bench press] 250-pounds across the line, from tackle to tackle, and we’re close,” Ahmed said. “We’re as close to that as we’ve ever been. But we’re not quite there yet. Size-wise we’ll probably go anywhere from 200 to 300 pounds … it’s the strength that is still a work in progress.”

Weighing in as the Raiders’ biggest offensive lineman is junior Dragos Matei, who transferred to Stuart from Romania the summer before his freshman year. Ahmed said he talked Matei into playing football — a new sport to him — as a freshman, but that he took his sophomore year off to instead participate in basketball and cross country.

“You look at him and he’s a Division I-size kid,” Ahmed said. “But he envisioned himself being this long, lean basketball player. And he tried hard to lose the weight, but he’s not thin-boned. He’s a lineman. I finally went to him and said, ‘Son, you’re designed to smash people.’ And I think we’ve finally convinced him of that.”

Familiar Foe

Junior running back Terrill Hawkins (5-9, 170) may be new to the Raiders’ program, but he is no stranger to Coach Ahmed.

“He’s coming to us from Paul VI,” Ahmed explained. “We actually scrimmaged them last year with our JVs and he ran all over us. So I’m very familiar with what he can do against me … I’m anxious to see what he can do for me.”

The Basics

Team: J.E.B. Stuart Raiders
District: National (Division 5)
Coach: Bahai Ahmed, 3rd year
Last year’s record: 0-10 overall, 0-7 district
Returning starters: 4 offense/6 defense
Players to watch: SS Anthony Champ, Jr., 5-8, 170; OL Carlos Embury, Sr., 6-0, 240; RB Terrill Hawkins, Jr., 5-9, 170; WR Jonny Wolfe, Sr., 5-9, 155.

To see a complete photo gallery from Stuart’s practice, go to http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/1179855540834/AngelaWatts/StuartFootball

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