Author: Tom McCann
The Middlebury Campus: When did you start playing football?
Stefan Hrdina: Probably about third or fourth grade. I played for the town next to me, Ridgefield, in Connecticut 'cause our town didn't have a football team.
Campus: Were you a standout player there?
SH: Not really, no. I started out actually only playing defense - I didn't even play offense. I played all the way from fourth grade up into high school and in high school played all four years. In my sophomore year I started on defense and then my junior year I played both on defense and offence.
Campus: Why did you choose Middlebury?
SH: I looked at the Ivys initially and I wasn't really even considering Middlebury. My dad sent a tape here - a highlight tape - and he didn't even mention it to me. We came up here to visit and just loved the school. The facilities were unbelievable and decided from there.
Campus: So, what did you do for pre-season?
SH: We came up two weeks early - a week and a half before the freshmen came up, and it was your typical pre-season - practices. But in high school, pre-season was a ton of practices, two or three practices a day, but here it was one or two practices only and then you'd have meetings the entire day. So you don't practice as much, but you have to wake up for breakfast at like, 7 a.m. or 6 a.m. and then your entire day is spent with football.
Campus: How were you feeling before the season?
SH: We had very high expectations. We definitely didn't think we'd end up being 3-5 going into it. We had an extremely good defense, we knew that, and the offense was coming together. And we scrimmaged Dartmouth - their second team players - and we crushed them so we thought we were gonna go and just dominate, but we didn't really live up to our own expectations.
Campus: What would be your personal highlight from the season?
SH: Probably the first game [against Bowdoin]. That was my first time ever starting here and I got off to a quick start and in the first half had two touchdowns, so it was definitely a good way to start. I had 38 carries for 238 yards.
Campus: And a team highlight?
SH: It would be the last game against Tufts. In that game I didn't actually play that much 'cause Dom DiDomenico '06 was a senior, but I mean, just to go out, especially for the seniors, on a note like that was awesome. We won 21-16 and we basically had a late scoring drive to win the game and then our defense had some unbelievable plays to end the game - two interceptions from Phil Ford '06.
Campus: So, Trinity's record of consecutive wins, (30) is two less than USC's(32). Can Trinity beat USC?
SH: [Laughs] No way… No way. Not a chance.
Campus: Who's the biggest prankster on the team?
SH: The biggest prankster or biggest goofball? The biggest goofball is probably Neiman Groce '07, I'd say. It's hard to explain. He's just a funny guy, he does funny things. He makes an idiot out of himself sometimes - always constantly telling jokes.
Campus: Who controls the music on the team bus?
SH: We don't have music on the bus. We watch movies, and that's usually left up to the captains and the coach. I think the coach usually has the final word. We watched "Detriot Rock City" last time.
Campus: What goes on in the locker-room when you guys disappear down there at halftime?
SH: Usually some of the guys will say something to get us fired up if we're not particularly playing well, and usually the coaches will come in after five or 10 minutes and just kinda say their little fire-up speech. And we'll do some schematical things, like, we'll go over possibly changing a play here or there or what we should look for in a play when we're out there.
Campus: What does it say on QB Tiger Lyon's '07 wrist? Does he have all the plays memorized?
SH: No, he doesn't, there's no way to memorize them all, and plus the thing changes week to week. We add different plays and take different plays out, and all the plays are on his wrist. It's over 100 plays, I know that.
Campus: Who hits harder, QBs or kickers?
SH: In our case, our quarterback. Our kicker [Steve Hauschka '07] is a converted soccer player, so he doesn't exactly hit too hard [laughs].
Campus: Do you find that your work suffers at all because of football?
SH: No. Gradewise, in the past, amazingly, I've done better during football season than I have outside of football season. I'm probably more organized because we're working with a ton of less time so it forces you to be organized because even though practice may only be two and a half hours, when it's all said and done, it's like a four and a half to five hour block of time taken out of your day. I take pride in being very organized and that's why I'm able to do well, but [for some guys] losing that time…
Campus: What are you doing with all your free-time now?
SH: [Laughs] I went back, and I didn't even know what to do - relax a little more?
Campus: So, what are the goals for next year?
SH: Personal goals would be to just, I'd say, rush for over 1000 yards. And as a team goal, I want to say to go 8-0 but [pause] Yeah - I'd just keep it at 8-0.
- Tom McCann, Sports Editor
INSIDE THE LOCKER ROOM Stefan Hrdina '07 takes his turn in the hot seat
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