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New Attitude a Grand Start

After his program went 2-7 in its inaugural varsity campaign last season, Grand Street Campus coach Ed Gazzillo sat down with assistant coaches Eric Sorensen and Alex Orengo and started firing out questions:

How are we going to turn this thing around? What can we coaches do better? How can we make practice more efficient?

Gazzillo and his coaching staff then took their thoughts to the team. First, the Wolves were going to hit the weight room, and players would be accountable for workout sessions and practices.

Gazzillo and his staff watched the roster drop from 35 players to 27 after preseason camp, but who's counting? Not Grand Street (4-0) which sits atop the Brooklyn II standings.

More impressive is that the Wolves, with a 1 rating, (the lowest in the PSAL's 1-3-5 team rating system) are fourth-best in the PSAL with 106 power points, trailing perennial PSAL powers Sheepshead Bay, Fort Hamilton and Lehman. Grand Street had started under Gazzillo as a club program in 1999 and went 5-3 as a junior varsity squad two seasons ago.

"It doesn't even feel like we're 4-0," Gazzillo said. "We feel like we're that guy who goes to work every day, goes at it hard, and comes home."

Just call these Wolves the lunch-pail squad. And it isn't too hard to figure out who their leader is either: Javon Sistrunk.

The senior tailback/middle linebacker is a kid who isn't afraid to call a teammate who's missed a practice, or try and play through an injury, like he did in a 14-0 win against Bryant on Sept. 14.

"His pinkie [bone] shot through his finger. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen," Gazzillo said. "We had the doctor stitch up the finger, and Javon wants to go back out and play."

The Wolves also count on a solid core of seniors, including Jomaul Williams, a 6-2, 225-pound fullback/outside linebacker and quarterback John Medici; as well as a talented offensive line.