DALEVILLE, Va. – Lord Botetourt High School football success under coach Jamie Harless is easy to quantify. In five seasons the Cavaliers have made five straight playoff appearances, racked up 44 wins and captured a group 3A state runner-up finish in 2015. But for the coach all the accomplishments pale in comparison to getting the most out of his players. His players, in turn, are getting the most out of their hard work.
"One of the things we try to do--we're going to do it with every kid, not just going to do it with a kid like Jesse(Hanson) or kid like Noah(Overstreet)-- if a kid walks in at this weight room we're going to squeeze every single drop of athletic ability that kid has out of his body," Harless said. "If we don't do that then they should fire us as coaches. When you work hard to give yourself choices and work in the weight room you earn the opportunity to go to a school. You give yourself choices. I always try to tell them, I say, you know your ability to make a good choice comes off of the values you have as a person," Harless said.
The payoff doesn't just come in the fall, but also this spring in the form of a swarm of college coaches who have descended on Daleville.
Hanson, a 6-foot-4, 290 pound rising junior offensive lineman has garnered three FBS offers, including from the University of Virginia and Iowa State.
"It's definitely become culture, " Hanson said. "Coach Harless starts with us in seventh grade. That is when I started coming here to do the work and he just grows us into an athlete and pretty much the whole program he makes the athletes. "He can take anybody and turn them into it do you want Division I athlete."
Overstreet, a rising senior defensive lineman, has a pair of D-1 offers to Buffalo and Navy.
"I want to be the kind a guy that comes in and works as hard as I can every day, " OVerstreet said. "Then maybe a younger kid who is slacking off will see me do that and kind of see the great things that of been happening and get inspired to work harder and harder and do better for the team."
Lord Botetourt is coming off an 8-3 season where it lost to eventual 3A state champion Blacksburg in the opening round of the VHSL 3A playoffs.