Winter Springs Bears ready to fight back in 2022

WINTER SPRINGS, FLORIDA – If the Winter Springs Bears are in need of inspiration this football season, they need to look no further than their head coach.

In 24 years of coaching, Tim Dycus never could find his way to a head coaching position. He served as an assistant or coordinator, waiting for an opportunity to prove himself.

Finally, Winter Springs came calling – and he’s ready to be the man in charge for the Bears in his 25th season.

“I’m very excited,” Dycus said. “It shows our players that whenever something doesn’t happen your way, you don’t take your ball and go home. You find that door to open and you keep fighting.

“If there’s something you’re dreaming about hard enough about and then it comes true, that’s good,” Dycus said. “Even if it didn’t come true for me, I’ve had a great life as an assistant or coordinator.”

Dycus replaces Matt Hesselbart, who led the Bears to a 1-7 record last season. But 2022 is a new season and that will include a new classification and new district.

Gone is the eight-classification format and in its place is a four-category format (Metro, Suburban, Retro, and Independent), with the top two categories consisting of four classes each.

Winter Springs will compete in 3M (Metro), District 2 with East River of Orlando, Lake Howell, Lyman and Oviedo. As a result, the Bears no longer have to worry about driving too far for district contests as categories are based on local population, not student body population.

“I’m very excited because we have some rivals still in our district,” Dycus said, “We didn’t lose those. Everybody is relatively close so we’ll have big away games, and we can have big home crowds. Again, we just have a lot of experience with these teams. We’re going to compete.”

Dycus will be leaning on six returning offensive starters, and three returning defensive starters to lead the way. The Bears will feature an experienced passing attack with the return of senior quarterback Hunter Hill, who passed for 346 yards and six touchdowns, and rushed for 171 yards and two scores in 2021.

Hill will have three returnees to throw to in juniors Brett Albury, who caught 14 passes for 126 yards and two TDs, and Kaiden Williams, who had 11 catches for 123 yards and three TDs; and sophomore Lucas Moyer.

Helping to protect Hill up front will be returning starters Aiden Gatton, senior guard, and Malik Emptage, junior offensive tackle.

Winter Springs may need to put up points in a hurry as the defense will be rebuilding in 2022. The Bears lost their top three tacklers to graduation, but return senior linebacker Jonathan Adams, who had 38 tackles last season.

Also back for the Bears are senior defensive lineman Kendell Clark and junior cornerback Claudius Smith.

Jonathan Adams returns as a kick returner for Winter Springs.

Despite the uneven number of returning starters, Dycus is confident about the team’s prospects.

“The number of players in the program is way up, returning some key core players on offense,” he said. “We’ll be more athletic, and the coaching staff has grown to a full staff.”

Dycus is one of eight coaches listed on staff. And the Bears are ready to rumble. “We want to keep the toughness we installed from the spring and compete for the district championship and build a football program from the freshman to the varsity, not just coach a team, but build a program for the future,” he said.