Kevin Tresolini
SEAFORD – They’ve been chasing ghosts at Seaford High for three decades now, striving to recapture their glory days.
Bob Dowd Stadium was once the state’s preeminent Friday night football location, from the stellar teams that took the field to the fervent community support that the Blue Jays generated.
There is a hint of that impassioned mood again at Seaford, where the Blue Jays, the state’s top-rated Class 1A team, continued their football renaissance Oct. 10.
Seaford dominated First State Military Academy 46-7 in their 1A District 3 opener on Ron Dickerson Field at Dowd. It capped a festive night that included a pregame homecoming parade and quarterback Vince Evans III being crowned homecoming king at halftime.
That was right after Evans had thrown a 50-yard touchdown pass to Aizyon Matthews as Seaford (6-1) took a 39-0 lead into halftime.
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History has long hovered over Seaford but, after 30 tough years, it’s not a burden but a stimulus for the Blue Jays.
“Back then, all they would talk about is Seaford, Seaford, Seaford,” said Evans, whose dad Vince is a former Seaford sports standout who is now basketball coach and athletic director.
“Now, we’re trying to bring that back for football and, as you can see right now, it’s working so we just got to keep doing that.”
Their season has been highlighted by a 28-13 win Sept. 26 at Laurel. The Bulldogs owned 21 straight wins over Seaford in a rivalry dating to 1919, making it the state’s oldest. Seaford thus reclaimed the Lion’s Club Trophy, made of nylon from Seaford and oak from a tree in Laurel and given annually to the victor for more than 80 years.
“It's all about being committed to the sport,” said senior running back Brendan West after scoring two touchdowns against FSMA.
“We ain't just playing for fun. We’re playing to get something out of it and we want to play because our heart is in it. So we stay together, and we stay together because that's how we're gonna win.’’
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The Blue Jays are in their first season under coach Glenn Phillips, who had been head coach at Laurel from 2012-15 after 11 seasons as an assistant there. The Bulldogs were Division II state runners-up in 2014.
In his final game as Laurel coach, his Bulldogs beat Seaford 70-0 at Dowd, so Phillips has a strong sense of how far the Blue Jays have come.
“These kids deserve to be loved. These kids come to work every day,” said Phillips, who had a successful stint as offensive coordinator at nearby Parkside in Maryland and also was a referee.
“Most of them walk to the building, rain, etc. These kids are awesome. They're the driving force behind me coming back to coach.”
Seaford’s only loss this year was 35-26 to Indian River, the defending state Class 1A champ, which was promoted to Class 2A this year and is unbeaten.
Seaford was the 1981 Division I state football champ. Enrollment figures dropped the Blue Jays to Division II the following year, and they reached two more state title games, losing to Archmere in 1982 and beating the Auks in 1983.
Success continued for another 10 years, as Seaford won five titles back in the Henlopen Conference North, where the league’s larger Division I schools dwelled, through 1993 and then won the Henlopen South, which contains the smaller schools, in 1994.
The declining success of Seaford sports programs has often been attributed to socio-economic changes in the 1990s into the early 2000s from the downsizing and eventual sale of the DuPont Nylon plant in Seaford.
“The history is here. The history is here to stay,” Phillips said. “We're just trying to ignite the roots, trying to make Captain Dick [former coach Ron Dickerson] proud, trying to make the Dickerson family proud, and most importantly, we're trying to make the community want to come out and support us with our volunteer work in the community.”
The names from those days, such as three-sport stars Delino DeShields, who played Major League Baseball, and Lovett Purnell, who played in the NFL, are still often uttered.
The Blue Jays have not won a conference title in football since 1994, meaning nailing down the Class 1A District 3 title this year would end a 30-year drought.
“It would mean a lot,” said senior Doubensly Saint-Jean, who tackled an FSMA runner for a safety in the win. “But I know for sure that we're gonna get it done. … Because every game that we go out there and we just put our mind to it and we play how Seaford football is supposed to be played, we always get it done.”
Seaford has greatly benefited from the DIAA’s decision starting in 2021 to divide all Delaware football teams into three classes determined by school enrolment but also recent results. That put Seaford in Class 1A with other similarly struggling programs against whom they’d be more evenly matched.
The Blue Jays made the 1A state playoffs in 2021 and 2022 and enjoyed their first winning seasons since going 7-3 in 1998. Twenty-two straight losing seasons followed, including nine in which Seaford won one game or zero.
“We're making history,” Saint-Jean said. “We got a shirt that says we're making history. I wish I had it on right now, but yeah, we’re making history.
“That’s what we’re chasing now. We want to be legendary."
Contact Kevin Tresolini at [email protected] and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com and
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