Harper Accents Fundamentals as He Runs Two Practices for His CLU Football Team

Joe Harper put his Cal Lutheran football team through its opening practice Friday morning, marking the first time the Kingsmen have begun a season without Bob Shoup, who coached them for 28 years.

Harper worked his 50-plus-member squad for a little more than two hours and brought the team back for more in the afternoon. The emphasis was on fundamentals including, in the morning session, several attempts at properly breaking the offensive huddle.

“We’re a long way away,” Harper said. “We’re starting from ground zero--’This is a football.’ ”

Veterans found the workouts more structured than Shoup’s practices.

“I like the way his practices are compared to last year,” senior safety Nicko Rising said. “We’ve got more to do.”

Harper, however, was less than pleased by his team’s intensity.

“It’s not good enough, not yet,” said Harper, who described his players’ overall conditioning as “very average.”

While many members of the team have expressed regret at the way Shoup’s dismissal was handled, they are nearly unanimous in their approval of Harper, who won a Division II championship at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

“With all the talk about Coach Shoup there was a lot of negativity about the program,” said Dana Zupke, a senior co-captain. “We can concentrate on just playing football for a definite change.”

And Harper can concentrate on coaching football. Not having coached since the 1985 season at Northern Arizona, he is back on the field for the first time in five years.

“This is the most enjoyable thing I’ve done since I’ve been here,” Harper said.