Dave Louder

RIMERSBURG — Senior offensive lineman Gavin Guntrum started his recruitment of Jesse Adams for the Union football team when he was in seventh grade.

Adams preferred the marching band and Guntrum didn't lean on him too hard. For his senior year, Adams decided to give it a go.

“We go to their houses and try to be friends with everyone in school,” Guntrum said. “If one person is friends with another, they can get them to come out.”

For the Golden Knights, building a family atmosphere pulled the program out of the doldrums.

Before coach Dave Louder took over in the middle of 2010 following Al Pryor's death, Union hadn't had a winning season since 1994.

The Golden Knights have made four straight trips to the postseason and won their first playoff game by upsetting Ridgway in the Class A District 9 playoffs last season.

All the progress has come in a district with a shallow enrollment.

Union has the 18th smallest male enrollment in the state among schools that offer football with 84 males in grades 10-12.

Twenty-six or 27 will end up on the Golden Knights' football team when it hosts Keystone Sept. 4 to open the season.

Creating a co-op with A-C Valley was discussed — and could happen in the future — to help the numbers, but that doesn't help Union in the present.

Filling out that roster, which featured 22 players last season, requires constant prodding.

“This year, we talked to our guys with how we could get their buddies to play,” Louder said. “That bully system could come into play, where guys get on you if you don't come out to play. We've turned that around.”

That relationship has also benefitted the other sports teams.

When Union track coach Jesse Pattison talked to Louder last winter, a few football kids went out for track to help improve.

Running back Dugan Gallagher — along with quarterback Cole Morris — both joined the track team to help get prepared for football.

“Track helps out for football with speed and conditioning,” Gallagher said. “I know last year I wasn't as fast as I was this year. Track helps out with your speed, every sport you play helps out with another sport.”

As long as everyone remains committed, Morris believes the Golden Knights' success can be sustained.

“There's no pressure,” Morris said. “We just need to keep doing Union football.”

Louder tries to make sure kids who play return and kids who don't know there is a place for them.

The biggest concern is his players learn how to get guys out the right way.

“We want them to know they are welcome here and we want them to be here,” Louder said. “We are a family organism and want to expand it.”