New Field, New Attitude, Winning Season? Pats Hope So!

Hudson Brown is one of the few veterans on the Freedom football team. (Photos: John C. Cotey)

Freedom senior Jimmy Carson is a confident kid. Despite living through an 0-9 season in 2020 and last year’s 1-9 record, when he looks out at his teammates practicing on the school’s new artificial turf field, he sees possibilities.

“New teammates, new field, new offense,” Carson says. “To be honest, I see a 7-3 record this season. And, if we’re lucky, we’ll make the playoffs.”

Carson, the Patriots best playmaker, is counting on breaking out this season and taking his teammates along for the ride. He is one of only two seniors on a Freedom team hoping to end a string of losing seasons dating back to 2014.

Jimmy Carson.

Coach Chris Short will once again be working with a small roster of about 30-35 players, and is unlikely to have enough kids for a junior varsity team. However, he is optimistic the Patriots can improve on last year. Although they lost their last eight games, they averaged 23 points per game the last three and pulled out a 7-6 win over King in the spring jamboree, creating some enthusiasm. 

Unfortunately, because the playing field at Freedom was being replaced all summer and the weight room was unavailable due to construction at the high school, Short couldn’t hold summer workouts and build on that spring win, so he’s hoping some of that enthusiasm is still left over.

“We’ve got a lot of young guys that didn’t see much playing time last year that we are eager to see,” Short says. “We’ll be relying on them this year.”

Two of those young guys will be under center — sophomore Hassan “Duke” Corley and Tampa Catholic junior transfer Austin Swank. Freedom will employ a two-quarterback system while running the triple option this year. Corley is more athletic, and Swank is more of a thrower, but both are capable signal callers, Short says.

“We’ll use each of their strengths to our advantage,” the coach adds.

Carson, a natural wideout who had to play running back last year and led the team with just 224 yards rushing, will be counted on to be one of the wings in the triple option. Carson says he is gunning for 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns. Short wants to get the ball in his hands in space as much as possible.

“If Jimmy buys in, he can have a huge year,” Short says.

Junior Osman Hafiz and sophomores Jordan Gentry and Devin Lee will share the carries in the backfield, and Bradley “Tre” Cole and Chris Xander-Gomez will get time and carries as well.

Aubin Maka Maka

The offensive line is small, and will be built around junior tackle/guard Hudson Brown, who is the biggest starter at 6-foot, 235 pounds, and sophomore center Doug Ruggero. Both also will play on the defensive line, which is a work in progress.

Linebackers Aubin Maka Maka (four sacks last season as a junior) and Hafiz give the Patriots some talent in the middle of the defense. Maka Maka is still new to the game, playing just his second year, but is Freedom’s best-looking prospect at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds.

Bradley Cole, who played for Freedom as a freshman before transferring to Tampa Catholic and Wharton last year, is back for his junior season, and will be joined in the defensive backfield by sophomore Jordan Gentry and junior Romell Taylor.

Short says he has enough young talent to improve on last year’s record, but his District, 3M-4, consists of three powerhouses who are considered State championship contenders in 2022 — Wharton, Armwood and Tampa Bay Tech.

Otherwise, the non-district schedule could yield a few Freedom wins.

Hafiz says a new group of leaders is ready to rewrite the Freedom narrative of the past few years.

“We’re like an upwards graph,” says Hafiz. “If you’re looking at the stock market, it’s like that, we’re going up.”

New Sign For Freedom High As Eagle Project

Austin Channels (left), a Boy Scout with Troop 180, built this sign for Freedom High in Tampa Palms as his Eagle project. Austin (with Freedom principal Kevin Stephenson) will graduate from the school next May.

To achieve the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank for scouts with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), Austin Channels had to lead a project that would help his community.

As a student at Freedom High in Tampa Palms, who will start his senior year this fall, Austin wanted to do something to impact his school for good.

“In previous years, there was a football sign that was up with the football schedule,” Austin explains. “Every year, they had to make a new sign and print it just for the new football schedule.”

So Austin — with the help of his mom, Kim — came up with the idea for an interchangeable sign that could make announcements for all the sports and other important school-related info.

Austin got approval from the school and led a team of fellow scouts and family members to conceptualize, design, build and implement the sign, plus add lighting and landscaping. He had to do his own fund raising to purchase materials, and says he met his goal of about $800 by selling T-shirts.

He worked to pick the perfect spot for the sign, where it could be seen by cars both entering and leaving the school.

Now, Austin’s sign will be maintained by the school, with student assistants changing the words on it as needed.

A final phase of the project will be to add clear plexiglass and a lock, so that no one can switch the letters around without the school’s authorization.

Austin is glad to be able to use his Eagle project as a platform to do something significant at his high school.

“It was cool to give back,” Austin says. “After being there for years with everyone teaching you, it’s good to give back to the school a little bit.”

Austin’s Eagle project is the culmination of his many years in Scouts, starting with Cub Scouts, when he was in third grade at Tampa Palms Elementary.

To achieve the Eagle rank, he’ll need to complete a Board of Review, which he expects to do soon. Once he earns the Eagle rank, his family will host a celebration this fall.

“It’s not as easy as other people made it look,” says Austin, who explains he’s seen many older scouts complete their Eagle projects, “because you’re leading everyone, you’re not just doing the project.”

Austin is a member of Troop 180, which meets at Compton Park in Tampa Palms. He says the best thing about his Boy Scout experience has been some of the incredible trips he’s had the opportunity to take, such as a 50-mile backpacking trip through the mountains of Wyoming, including Yellowstone Park.

He says his journey to earn the Eagle rank is just another part of his Scouting experience, and he looks forward to finishing out the year with his troop before he completes the program when he graduates high school.

“It’s like mountain climbing,” Austin says, “You climb one, but then there’s another one a little bit taller that you can climb.”

His dad, Steve, who is a teacher at Freedom, says Austin’s scouting experience has taught him skills and helped him to be more self-reliant than many kids his age.

“Austin has little side businesses repairing cell phones and doing car repairs that has taught him to appreciate money,” says Steve. “He bought his own car with his own money, after saving for several years. Not many teenagers do that.”

Steve says his son has spent a lot of his time this summer doing yard work for elderly neighbors, including one he drives to various appointments and whenever she needs a ride somewhere.
“It’s been a delight to follow his journey,” says Steve, “and yes, I’m really proud of him.”