If you build it, he will come.
That doesn't only relate to the 1989 movie Field of Dreams about constructing a baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield, it also connects with the Universal Audenried Charter High School football team in South Philadelphia.
A team that didn't exist two years ago.
Roy-Al Edwards, who was the dean of students at Audenried, as well as in his sixth year as an assistant coach at The Haverford School, would find himself facing not only a rare, but an enormous challenge.
"I was leaving to go to practice and I had my Haverford School football gear on," Edwards says. "And the athletic director at the time, Mr. Kenyatta Bey, said to me, 'We always wanted to have a football program here at Audenried, but we weren't in the best place to do it. We didn't have the guy for the job.' And he thought I was the guy for the job.
"I actually never wanted to really be a head coach. And then the head coach at The Haverford School told me that a couple jobs were opening up and he felt like it's time for me to grow and to be a head coach. And so I went to the job interviews and actually got offers from a couple schools.
"But it just wasn't the right fit because I wanted to be with my kids throughout the day, the kids I'm coaching. I was already the dean of students here, and so after turning down those two jobs, when Mr. Bey brought that to me, it just seemed like it was meant to be."
After going around the school and asking how many would want to play, and then getting approval from the school board, Edwards, who has been Audenried's dean of students since 2022, approached the Philadelphia Public League (PPL) about fielding a team. He was told it would have to be a junior varsity program for two years to prove itself and that they would have kids show up to play.
"I started getting a list of kids who were interested in playing, which is funny because most of those kids ended up not playing once they realized how serious of a commitment it is," Edwards says. "We initially had like 100 kids sign up, but then the first day of workouts, that was cut in half. And then as we got closer to the season and summer practices, that was cut in half. So we ended up last year with 25 to 30 kids."
Those kids who stuck it out and were playing organized football for the first time, posted a 6-3 record. The PPL was impressed with the structure of Audenried's program and the results.
"After the first year, we were pretty successful and they moved us up to varsity this year, which was a great, great thing because we won our first three league games," Edwards says.
Those victories were not limited to what happened on the field.
"The kids that are on the team, they're more motivated to do better in school, to show up and get their education because you're a scholar-athlete and you've got to be a student first," Edwards says. "Attendance is better, and the behavior in the classrooms, and their grades, because if you're failing at any point, then you don't travel that week for the game. So that motivates the kids to do better in the classroom.
"And a lot of these kids deal with a lot at home and in their life. This is an outlet for them where they can be themselves around other young men who deal with a lot of the same difficulties, that have a lot of the same struggles. It's a brotherhood. We have our kids always talking about holding each other accountable and holding each other to the standard.
"These kids, they need a positive male figure in their life. A lot of them don't have that. And I just felt like this was just a great opportunity for me to do something from the ground up that's never been done before. I keep reminding the kids that, whether good or bad, everything that we do is history. And we want to make most of it a positive history."
Edwards, the Philadelphia Eagles High School Coach of the Week, has a history with another coach in South Philly, Nick Sirianni.
When the Eagles' head coach was the wide receivers coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (2006-08), he successfully recruited Edwards, who was the Offensive MVP and a member of the 2006 All-Delco County first-team as a senior at Strath Haven High School in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and coached him for two seasons.
"I'm happy for him," Sirianni says. "He's always had a great personality and good football mind, so it doesn't surprise me he's in this profession of leading young men and obviously he's doing a really good job to get this award. I'm proud of him."
"Being named Coach of the Week means the world to me," Edwards says. "I've always been an Eagles fan, and like I said, it was never in my thought process that I wanted to be a head coach. And especially, I never could have predicted I'd be a head coach in South Philly when we're 10 minutes away from the NovaCare Complex and the coach that recruited me to play football in college. So it's just all full circle."
As the head coach at Audenried, Edwards uses the core values Sirianni stands for and his philosophy – Connect, Compete, Accountability, Football IQ, and Fundamentals.
"You've got to take care of the little things, that's the fundamentals. You've got to teach it, especially with us, most of our kids never played football before. So to teach the fundamentals, it's very important. To teach them football IQ is very important. Because it's totally different than playing video games," Edwards says.
"Connecting is everything. The goal is always to get a bunch of individuals to play for each other. That comes with connecting and understanding each other, and wanting to do well for not only yourself, but your teammates."
"It's an honor that he's taken stuff that we talked about a long time ago and continues to talk about that today and use that," Sirianni says. "At the end of the day, though, that's the truths of football. You play tough, you play detailed, you play together, and good things happen."
When a head coach takes over a program, he has his work cut out for him. Edwards did so initially without any players, helmets, shoulder pads, uniforms, or even footballs. Audenried didn't even have a field. What makes him most proud of what he's accomplishing?
"I would say, honestly, just keeping these kids busy and off the streets," Edwards says. "A lot of these kids with that idle time, that's when they make bad decisions. Football's keeping them busy. Once they're done with school, it's football every day. And by the time they are done with practice, they're going home and eating and going to sleep because they've got to wake up and do it over. It's just on repeat, repeat, repeat.
"So that's what I'm most proud of, building relationships with these kids. And now they know that they have somebody that they can trust that's going to show up for them every day. Because a lot of these kids, they don't have somebody that shows up for them every day. And I'm happy I can be that for them."
