The expanded football coverage in the Butler Eagle this season is well-timed.

Butler High School’s football numbers have expanded as well.

The Golden Tornado had roughly 40 players in grades 10-12 last season. They will enter the 2018 season with 60.

Butler couldn’t field a freshman team last season. This year, they have 40 freshmen on the squad.

If football was dying in this town, it’s suddenly been resuscitated.

The naming of Eric Christy as head coach has had something to do with the drastic increase in numbers. He is a Butler guy after all, a Golden Tornado graduate who has been on the staff for a decade, teaches in the school and knows the kids well.

But another reason for the surging interest in Butler football among the school’s athletes is Mike Seybert.

Christy joked that he brought Seybert on board as a volunteer assistant coach to serve as “recruiting coordinator” for the program. But joke or not, that’s precisely what Seybert became.

A longtime track coach at the school and a teacher himself, Seybert knows the athletes in that school. He knows the athletes coming up through the younger grades as well.

And the guy is a salesman.

Not by trade, but by nature.

Bottom line, Seybert knows how to get things done. His motor never stops, particularly when it comes to building and supporting Butler High School athletics.

So when he told Christy he would come on board as a volunteer assistant coach, he was taken up on that offer.

Seybert spent a lot of time talking to kids, visiting them in their homes, explaining to them, the virtues of high school football, school pride and why donning a helmet and shoulder pads during the late summer and early fall months would be well worth their time.

Lo and behold, during team pictures the other day at Art Bernardi Stadium, a number of athletes from other Butler High School teams were running all over the field, throwing and catching passes.

Whether this results in the Tornado winning more games remains to be seen.

But one thing is certain.

Kids in that school are excited about football again. The 40 freshmen are a promising sign for the short-term future of the program.

True, Butler football has been to the WPIAL playoffs twice in the last 20 years.

True, the Tornado have not had a winning record on the varsity gridiron since 1997.

Those facts shouldn’t be discouraging. They should be motivating.

It’s time for a change. Maybe these guys will provide it.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle