This will be their third season playing together, and all they want is a little respect

Don’t be surprised if at some point during the 2017 high school football season Bellingham coach Ted Flint decides to roll a set of speakers out to the Red Raiders’ new on-campus artificial practice surface to blast some of soul music queen Aretha Franklin’s greatest hits.

One song in particular – “Respect” – should hit home with his squad.

“We’re trying to build respect as a team,” senior Nicholas Oesterling said, “so other teams respect us for who we are and where we’re going. That’s what we’re going for. ... It’s a positive thing, playing well, doing good as a team, playing clean.”

As the white t-shirts with red capital letters worn by players and coaches would suggest, the Red Raiders have adopted “Respect” as their theme for the 2017 season – the program’s second since returning to the 2A Northwest Conference after spending two seasons as an independent to allow the program to reset itself and build its numbers and confidence.

Last season’s return went relatively well. Even though Bellingham finished sixth in the 2A NWC standings, the Red Raiders feel they held their own in arguably the toughest 2A league in the state.

“We felt we were competitive in every game we played last year, but we only won four of them” Flint said. “We obviously want to stay competitive in every game we’re in this year and increase our wins. We feel we’re at the point we can play with anyone we go against.”

That’s right, Bellingham respects itself.

“It’s something that we’ve been building toward toward for three years,” Flint said. “We’re just trying to find ways for them to keep building and keep improving. ... ‘Respect’ also means something for each of the letters that we have goals set for – just a way to keep us moving forward and improving.”

Taking that next step certainly makes sense for a squad that returns a large number of three-year varsity players. In fact, Flint said, this is, for the most part, the same varsity roster Bellingham has had for the past two seasons.

This year’s seniors have been building for this season since the team was an independent, and they feel now it’s their time to shine.

“Last year was our first year back in the league, and there were some rough parts,” senior Ethan Fields said. “Now all the seniors, we’ve been playing together for three years. I definitely see us coming together and making a run for the playoffs. ... We need to focus on working together as a team and being selfless.”

It’s also going to take some talent – something the Red Raiders feel they return plenty of this season.

It starts at quarterback, where senior Nick Knutson returns after passing for 1,463 yards and 14 touchdowns last season. He has his top two targets back, in junior Spencer Lee (627 yards, 7 touchdowns) and senior Ethan Fields (329 yards, 2 TDs). The Red Raiders also have their top two rushers from last year back in Connor Wallace (854 yards, 7 TDs) and Fields (242 yards, 3 TDs).

Bellingham also returns three lineman: senior center Aiden Helming, senior guard Brahm vanWoerden and Oesterling.

“Those guys have been running our offense since they got to Bellingham, so they know it and understand it well,” Flint said. “Right now, we’re focusing on making little advancements, because we’ve got everybody back.”

The same is true on defense, where Flint said senior Jade Dudoward will join Oesterling, Helming and vanWoerden up front. The secondary also should be strong with Fields, Lee, Wallace and Knutson. They hope to help Bellingham trim the 31.3 points per game it allowed in 2016.

“I think the experience we have will help them play faster,” Flint said. “They know the schemes, because we’ve been running them for a few years now.”

With that type of talent and experience returning, 2A NWC opponents are advised not to overlook Bellingham this year.

Now all the Red Raiders need, Flint said, is to respect what it takes to be successful.

“We need to prepare the same way every time and not decide ahead of time that they’re better than us or we’re better than them,” Flint said. “Some of the things we ran into last year was deciding those things before we played them. We need to respect ourselves and respect the team we’re playing all the time.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 9:00 AM with the headline "This will be their third season playing together, and all they want is a little respect."