For a team that’s only 3 years old with no real home field to call its own, the Crispus Attucks High School football program is a proud one. The Tigers have found their head coach, a former IPS guy who coached and played in the district. A handful of core players brought the team from where it was when it was reborn — winless in a three-game season in 2016 — to where it is now, coming off a 6-4 season in its first year as a varsity sport.
After losing two of their first three games this season, the Tigers won five of their last six regular season games, including an eight-point win against fellow IPS school Shortridge High School before losing their first sectional game since 1985 against Indian Creek High School, Trafalgar.
The schedule on Crispus Attucks’ athletics website says the Tigers played eight home games this season, but they didn’t actually play those games at home. The school’s football field is in bad condition, with divots in the field and weeds growing in the stands. Crispus Attucks instead used Northwest Middle School (which was converted from a high school after the 2017-18 school year) and Arsenal Tech High School for its home games. This was bad for fan turnout, but it was a chance for first-year head coach Abe Tawfeek to return home. Tawfeek was the head coach at Northwest for the 2015 and 2016 seasons, and he played football there as a student from 1995 to 1999.
Simply put, six wins was an improbable achievement for Crispus Attucks. Athletic Director and basketball head coach Chris Hawkins called it “coach-of-the-year-type stuff” from Tawfeek.
“They didn’t expect nothing from us, basically,” sophomore receiver and cornerback Duvuan Love said. “Even people at our school would tell us, ‘Y’all not good.’ But we channeled it out and focused on us to do what we capable of.”
Not only is Crispus Attucks still a football team in its infancy, but the coaching staff was in limbo well into the summer months. Tawfeek didn’t have job security when the district announced it was closing Northwest and two other high schools, so he left IPS for the 2017 season and coached at Richmond. He wanted to come back, so he applied for jobs at Crispus Attucks and Arsenal Tech. Crispus Attucks offered, and Tawfeek accepted the head coach job and also became a special education English teacher.
But that was in late July, and the season started Aug. 17. For all the challenges that came with that quick turnaround, one thing Tawfeek didn’t have to worry about was rebuilding a culture — because there wasn’t much there to begin with.
“It was an empty canvas,” Tawfeek said, “and I could come and paint whatever I wanted to paint.”
Players say Tawfeek brought stability to the program. Disorganization and the team getting in its own way plagued the program’s first two years, said Crishawn Givens, a junior lineman who’s played all three years.
“We just didn’t have unity and communication between us and the coaches,” Givens said. “There was a lot of arguments between teammates and arguments between coaches. It was like a catfight.”
Other players who have been part of the team all three years are starting to pull their own weight to make Crispus Attucks football a respectable program, according to Love. There’s less fighting, less bickering.
That’s part of the reason why these Crispus Attucks players don’t feel the need to compare themselves or their program to others in the area. They know they don’t have the same resources and that instinct says to not take an inner-city school’s athletic department too seriously, but it hasn’t bothered them yet.
“Yeah, at a charter school they got a lot of people,” Givens said. “And yeah, at a township school they got a lot of people. But they might not have the heart we got. … We strong together. We fast together.”
Some of the next steps for this program are obvious. Tawfeek said he’ll start fundraising this offseason to renovate the stadium, which Hawkins added is a feasible goal for the next few years. Hawkins mentioned the possibility of local partnerships with businesses and IUPUI to accomplish that task. They also want to add a junior varsity team to develop younger, less experienced players.
But those are administrative goals. Ask Givens what’s in store for his senior season next year, and he’s got a quick response.
“I ain’t got no doubt about it, we goin’ to state.”
Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853 and follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.
