Numbers Down, Spirits Up

A lot of things have changed on the Lely High School football team since last season. Coming off of back-to-back district championships and trips to the regional semifinals, the future looked bright when the curtain closed on the 2025 season. But then the rug was pulled out from under the program when former head coach Ben Hammer was fired on the eve of Christmas Break. New head coach Dan Nieboer was brought in from Texas and instituted a no-nonsense approach that was not embraced by many of the team’s upperclassmen.

The result was a battle of wills between the returning lettermen and the new head coach. It was obvious that Nieboer would sooner go down with the ship than lower his standards. Entering fall practice, the majority of the upperclassmen have jumped ship. The star quarterback transferred to Hollywood Chaminade-Madonna and the star running back to Miami Central, who knocked the Trojans out of the playoffs last season. And while Nieboer is left with diminished numbers, he still has plenty of talent on the roster, and much better attitudes toward his vision for the program going forward.

"To put it politely,” Nieboer said, "the players that stayed have bought in. The pushback came from the ones that decided that they didn't want to be here anymore. So the guys that we have are great kids. They work hard. They like being around each other. They ask questions. They're not afraid to get out of their comfort zone. So I'm proud of the team that we're building, and I think that I speak for the other coaches as well, that we're building something that we can be proud of. I think we have a good core of young guys that are working hard. And the seniors that are still with us are showing great leadership and trying to help the young guys grow into their roles. So it's been good.”

Nieboer is working with a roster of about 48 players, freshmen through seniors. That number should normally be around 80. And many of those 48 players are freshmen and sophomores.

"I think we have five seniors,” Nieboer said.

Make that five loyal seniors.

"That's right,” Nieboer said. "We want to love on and coach the guys that want to be with us. We will be essentially a varsity and JV. We will not field a freshman team.

The ninth graders will play JV. I control what I can control. And quite honestly, it makes things manageable. You don't have to fight as much to find places to get younger guys in. We need them to play. And that gives them an opportunity to develop a lot quicker.”

Nieboer has a trio of freshmen who will make an impact on the varsity roster.

“We have three ninth graders that will see time with us on varsity,” he said. "All three of them have very good speed. Two of them are already two of our tallest players on the team. The one ninth grader is Javon Milien. He is one of the top three fastest players in our program. So he'll play quite a bit on offense. There's another one named Ferlando Andre. He's about 6’1", probably close to 180 pounds. He'll play some on offense as well. And then there's another one named Levens Vincent who will be a linebacker and receiver for us.”

Nieboer plans to start Marco Islander Luke Trebilcock, a junior, at quarterback.

"Luke showed great leadership with the guys,” Nieboer said. "We go through our speed workout and then weights, and then he'd keep the rest of the guys another hour, hour and a half throwing routes and building relationships with each other. That quarterback position is super important. We need a great leader there.”

Cannon Boyd, who looked good as a quarterback in the Spring Game, will likely be used primarily at receiver, though Nieboer said he will continue to work with Boyd at quarterback.

Nieboer has an ally in CJ Noel, president of the South Naples Trojans, the highly successful feeder team to the Lely Trojans.

"It's been really good,” Nieboer said. "He reached out to me a week or so after our spring game and he said, ‘Coach, I love what you're doing over there. You're doing what those guys need.' So he and I and his wife, Kelly, and his daughter met for dinner. We just talked about some things that we thought needed to be brought back into the fold in terms of tradition. And it's been really good.”

Noel was a standout running back for the Trojans in his youth. Now his son Maksim, an outstanding defensive back, is one of the building blocks for this year’s team.

"CJ made a good point,” Nieboer said. "He said, ‘If somebody decides they want to go someplace else, just treat it like he graduated early.’ So that’s the stance that I've taken, especially in my mind, because it doesn't do me or anybody else any good to wish we had this guy or wish we had that guy. The guys that are here are the guys that we're going to win with. And to steal from the late, great Joe Paterno, ‘Don't complain about the kids, they're the only ones we have.’"

And while his numbers aren’t big, Nieboer likes the athleticism of his squad.

"We have quite a bit of skill,” he said. "I think that our team speed is very, very good. We will probably have to use one or two defensive linemen on our offensive line as well. But we do have some good young guys that are big guys that really hadn't had a whole lot of playing time last year aside from what they did on JV, but they're going to be thrown into the fire as sophomores. And then there's a couple big juniors that are coming back that were JV guys. We aren't asking them to maul anybody and we aren't asking them to block anybody for seven seconds. We're just using our size and good feet to get in people's way, and then our quarterbacks will do the rest."

Nieboer is expecting big things from sophomore running back Billy Bornelus, who had a breakout performance in the Spring Game against Palmetto Ridge.

"He's going to be a great one for us,” Nieboer said.

Nieboer is looking forward to school starting.

"I think that once we have them as a captive audience when school starts, that a lot of things will iron themselves out because we'll see them even more,” he said. “When they get here, we have a touch point with them. During the school day, I spend my lunch period basically walking around the cafeteria and through the commons to make sure I see the guys, spend that time talking with them, taking their temperature to see how things are at home. How are things with the job? How are things with the girlfriend? That’s how relationships are built.”