Great Friday Night Tripps

RENOVO – Lifetime Renovo area residents Keith and Carol Tripp logged a lot of miles in their vehicle over the last three years. Every Friday night during the high-school football season they would drive 103 miles (one-way) to a special place called “Tiger Stadium” in rural Catawissa, PA to see their grandson play for the Southern Columbia Tigers. All total, 42 Friday nights were spent sitting in the stands cheering along with thousands of other Tigers faithful in those 3 years (not to mention all of the JV games when he was a freshman).

Joshua Tripp started all 42 games for Southern the last 3 years (and saw limited time as a freshman). 42 games in 3 years, that’s more than a lot of teams play in 4 years – and the Tripp’s were at every one of them!

Josh, whose brother Shane is a freshman and plays in the Tigers band, wrapped up his career at Southern and has signed his letter-of-intent to continue his playing career at Bloomsburg University. Bloomsburg, one of the most successful Division II schools in the country, has won 39 games over the past 4 years, including the PSAC Championship in 2013. Josh will play for Line Coach Brian McBryan, who has coached players to successful careers in the NFL (most notably current All-Pro Jahri Evans of the New Orleans Saints). McBryan, a 1980 Lock Haven University Grad, might be familiar to some Bucktail faithful. He student taught at Renovo Elementary in 1979 (under former gym teacher Adam Waltz) and got his first tatse of coaching on the Bucktail staff that same year.

According to Bloomsburg University Head Coach Paul Darragh, “We’re excited about the guys that we’ve signed. We target certain positions and certain types of young men, and I think we’ve achieved our goals with this group. We’re excited about moving forward and adding these guys to a football team that has a lot of talent already in it.”

Chuck Henicle, Bloomsburg’s Defensive Co-ordinator and Director of Recruiting added, “Offensively, the two main positions (at which) we needed to add quality depth were offensive line and wide receiver.” And according to multiple media outlets, the addition of Tripp helped make this group of recruits very solid.

Southern Columbia legendary head-coach Jim Roth (who in 30 years at the helm of the Tigers has amassed 354 wins, 61 losses and 2 ties) isn’t worried about Tripp making the adjustment to college football. “Josh has enough potential to play at that level without question,” Roth said. “I would look at three areas (where he stands out): his size (6’4”, 280 lbs), his athletic ability as a lineman and his overall attitude being physical enough and aggressive enough to play at that level.” Added Roth, “As you know, Division II is a pretty high level of football in this day and age. In all three areas he’s strong enough to succeed. Josh has got that character makeup to make the jump from a big fish to starting over again. That’s another area where I think he’s strong.”

All of the success Josh has had, hasn’t come easy. He was the only freshman pulled up to the varsity roster in 2010. The “call-up” was due to a few key injuries to other linemen, and Roth needed depth. After some hesitation, Josh attributes that as the best thing that could’ve happened to him. A couple of players who were juniors (Tom Schetroma and Brian Gedman) got ahold of him during the next off-season, got him in the weight-room and the rest is history. He earned the starting nod at left-tackle on a team that played for the State Title (losing to Clairton 35-19) as a sophomore. Josh is a weight room rat (benches 225lbs/21 times, 520lb deadlift), along with speed, team, line camps and any other camp or combine that his dad would take him to helped mold him into the player he is today. During his three years as a starter (2013 as a captain), Southern Columbia put up some staggering offensive numbers:

678 first downs (16.1/game)

12,948 rushing yards (308/game – 7.28 yards per attempt)

4,772 passing yards (113.6/game)

17,720 Total yards (421.9/game)

1,829 points (43.5/game)

In the recruiting process, he had been a guest at some pretty big schools (Pitt, Penn State, Army and Lehigh to name a few) and attended games at those schools as a recruit. He and his father Keith, a 1985 Bucktail grad, put a lot of miles on the road as well. “We sat at a table in Beaver Stadium eating burgers with Larry Johnson, saw Stanford play Army, and Pitt upset Virginia Tech – to name a few of the games we saw, it was a pretty awesome experience all around.” Tripp added, “ My dad figured out that we spent some 60 hours in the car going to football related visits and functions over the summer alone.” When asked about why he chose Bloomsburg over schools like Kutztown, East Stroudsburg and Lock Haven, Josh said, “Bloomsburg is close to home, a good football program and a good school. I wanted to stay closer to home. Bloomsburg has a tradition of winning and has a tradition of having good linemen.”

For all of his hard work, Josh received numerous awards from the media this past year:

Outstanding Offensive Lineman at the Sportsrecruiters.com combine

2013 Pennsylvania Associated Press, Class A, All-State

2013 Shamokin News-Item Top 25

2013 Sunbury Daily Item 1st Team

2013 Press-Enterprise 1st Team

2013 Press-Enterprise Outstanding Offensive-Lineman

EasternPAfootballnews.com small school 1st Team

PAfootballnews.com, Class A, 1st Team

You can bet if you ask Keith or Carol Tripp (and Josh’s BIGGEST fans Jaelyn and Jacey Tripp, who’s father Kevin is also a Bucktail grad) if all the miles were worth it, you would have a hard time wiping the smiles off their faces after they told you “yes, and we’re going to miss it!” But now, they don’t have to travel every Friday night, just Saturday’s from now on!