Deception is an important part of football. On the seventh and eighth-grade Benjamin football team, layers of deception are used to prevent opposing teams from knowing the Bucs’ plays and gaining an edge. One of the means by which the Bucs keep their plays a secret is a color and number system designed by the coaches which secretly tells the players what play to run during the course of the game. Offensive Coordinator Mr. Robert Bayless will call out “orange” or “blue,” then a number ranging from one through nine. All the players on offense have a wristband that tells them which play corresponds to that particular color and number combination.

One of the more interesting means of deception practiced by the Bucs, however, derives from a few pieces of black poster board. On the poster board, which measures approximately two feet high by three feet wide, are a series of seemingly random symbols: a mermaid, a slice of watermelon, and…SpongeBob Squarepants. Special Teams Coordinator Mr. Billy O’Leary usually holds up the poster board on the sideline. However, the trickery here lies in what the symbols don’t mean..

“These signs are almost entirely for fun,” said seventh grader Nick Lutz, one of the team’s centers. “They don’t do anything….they’re just really funny.”  These signs have two purposes: to confuse opposing coaches and provide some humor to Benjamin’s fans and players. So while the signs may seem ridiculous, they may distract opposing coaches into trying to figure out their meaning. The idea to make the signs came from none other than Head Coach Gregory Keller. “[The University of] Oregon did it. Now a lot of colleges and high schools do it,” said Keller, who’s been coaching the seventh and eighth-grade team for 10 years.

In football, each team is always trying to gain an edge, even if it comes in the form of pictures of fruit or emojis.

“The other team could see the signs and think they meant something….then they might assign a coach to figure out what the signs mean,” said eighth grader James Richardson, who also plays center for the team. “That means they would have one less coach for everything else.” Even if the signs only get the opposing coaches’ attention for a few minutes, that’s a few minutes the coaches are distracted trying to decipher the signs’ significance.

There were eight signs made by a group of Ms. Nancy McAllister’s art students. They drew four random pictures per sheet – such as a can of spray paint, a candy bar, etc. –  and then sandwiched the two sides together to make the double-sided signs.

The signs must have worked to some extent, as the seventh and eighth graders finished the season 4-2 and had an emotional, gritty win over Coral Springs Charter in their final contest. Hopefully the only readers of this article are loyal Buccaneers, because we want to keep the secret weapons that keep us winning, well, secret!