By JEREMY TIMMERMAN
Eastern Christian Academy is unlike any opponent Strom Thurmond - or any other area team - has played in recent memory.
First of all, there is reportedly a physical school building for ECA, but the students don't take most of their classes there. It's a division of the umbrella online school National Connections Academy, with all of its players enrolled and taking classes there and meeting in age-appropriate groups throughout the school year.
Ryan Ginn, a sports reporter for the Cecil Daily in the Honey Badgers' listed hometown of Elkton, Md., said he hasn't seen that building, and doesn't knows of any planned home games. If there were home games on the team's national independent schedule, there might not be a student section because it has been reported that all of ECA's students are players on the football team.
The Honey Badgers are expected to travel well, despite their lack of student or community support, though. The crowd of family and other supporters was large at a recent scrimmage with Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Olney, Md.
On top of all that, the school's mascot is the Honey Badger. While many schools, like Strom Thurmond, have age-old symbols, many of which have historical meaning in the community, ECA is named after an animal many hadn't heard of until recently.
A humorous YouTube video and former LSU star Tyrann Matthieu changed all that, and now the world has the Eastern Christian Academy Honey Badgers.
The goal of the program is a lofty one, as stated by head coach Dwayne Thomas in a video interview for the Bleacher Report.
"We want to prepare our kids so that they can be sophomores when they get on college campuses," he said in the video, although calls placed to Thomas were unanswered. "So they're ready physically and mentally to compete and handle any type of schemes that the coaches will throw at them on the college level."
That was also the goal for Red Lion Academy in Delaware, where Thomas and many of his players, including starting quarterback David Sills V, made their football homes until this year.
When Red Lion decided to take its football program back under the jurisdiction of Delaware's independent school organization, Sills' father, David Sills IV, and other parents elected to fund the creation of this new program.
Jeremy Timmerman has a journalism degree from Mercer University and has been at the Aiken Standard since June 2010.![]()
Eastern Christian Academy is unlike any opponent Strom Thurmond - or any other area team - has played in recent memory.
First of all, there is reportedly a physical school building for ECA, but the students don't take most of their classes there. It's a division of the umbrella online school National Connections Academy, with all of its players enrolled and taking classes there and meeting in age-appropriate groups throughout the school year.
Ryan Ginn, a sports reporter for the Cecil Daily in the Honey Badgers' listed hometown of Elkton, Md., said he hasn't seen that building, and doesn't knows of any planned home games. If there were home games on the team's national independent schedule, there might not be a student section because it has been reported that all of ECA's students are players on the football team.
The Honey Badgers are expected to travel well, despite their lack of student or community support, though. The crowd of family and other supporters was large at a recent scrimmage with Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Olney, Md.
On top of all that, the school's mascot is the Honey Badger. While many schools, like Strom Thurmond, have age-old symbols, many of which have historical meaning in the community, ECA is named after an animal many hadn't heard of until recently.
A humorous YouTube video and former LSU star Tyrann Matthieu changed all that, and now the world has the Eastern Christian Academy Honey Badgers.
The goal of the program is a lofty one, as stated by head coach Dwayne Thomas in a video interview for the Bleacher Report.
"We want to prepare our kids so that they can be sophomores when they get on college campuses," he said in the video, although calls placed to Thomas were unanswered. "So they're ready physically and mentally to compete and handle any type of schemes that the coaches will throw at them on the college level."
That was also the goal for Red Lion Academy in Delaware, where Thomas and many of his players, including starting quarterback David Sills V, made their football homes until this year.
When Red Lion decided to take its football program back under the jurisdiction of Delaware's independent school organization, Sills' father, David Sills IV, and other parents elected to fund the creation of this new program.
Jeremy Timmerman has a journalism degree from Mercer University and has been at the Aiken Standard since June 2010.