School Spotlight: Our Lady of Good Counsel (MD

By: Tyler Barros

Our Lady of Good Counsel High School is located in Olney, Maryland. About an hour drive away from the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. Our Lady’s football team is a part of the Washington Catholic Capital Conference. This conference may be one of the hardest conferences among all high school football divisions across the country. With only five teams in the entire conference, three of them, along with the Our Lady Falcons, are ranked in the top 50 high school football teams in the nation. As of right now, Our Lady is ranked 47th in the nation. (According to Maxpreps) The Falcons are led by head coach, Andy Stefanelli, who took over the reins as head coach in 2017. Coach Stefanelli had some big shoes to fill in when he became head coach as their former coach, Bob Milloy stepped away from the game. Coach Milloy is Maryland’s all-time winningest high school football coach.

Coach Stefanelli is an alumni of Our Lady and spent about 8 years as the school’s freshman football coach before moving up to varsity. Last week, I had the great opportunity to speak with Coach Stefanelli about his team and their season

One of the first things I asked coach was, if there was any message that was praised during the offseason and summer workouts. He responded “We really put a big emphasis on leadership because we felt last year he had a few senior leaders, but not much out of the younger group. Since those seniors graduated and moved on, we don’t really have much of a senior class this year. So it was really going to be the matter of which of these current juniors are going to step up and take on a leadership role. We did a leadership class for them, preached to them about leadership, different kinds of leadership and also what they needed to and how important it was. So that was really the message to the team. For us to get there, they were going to have to take ownership of this team and make it theirs”. on the team grow up, mature, and develop a passion for the game. Also to get them to understand the benefits that football can provide for them. Not just in scholarships and things like that, but in the real value of teamwork and working hard. To see where they come in and they don’t see that, they’re just playing football because it’s fun. As they move along through the process, it’s certainly when they come back after going to college. They come back, thank you and they really get it and understand what you were saying. That is definitely gratifying, some of the comments and stuff we’ll get from former players. Thanking us as a staff and what we did for them. For me, it’s really about the players and that bond you create with them. You know some of that comes with struggles, and sometimes you have to be hard on them. They might not always appreciate it or like it at the time, but over time I think they see it”.

I also talked to coach Stefanelli about his team’s recent trip to Baton Rouge where they faced off with Catholic. We talked a little bit about their trip but also talked about traveling around the nation to play in games. Coach Stefanelli responded that, “We’ve gone down to Georgia to play, played in Florida, went to California, and it’s just a different level. It is really the speed of the game. In our league, the metro area DC, it’s one of the top leagues in the country. That is usually the difference when you travel, especially when you go down south and you see the speed. For us, we see still see that kind of speed here, but when we go down there, it’s still a challenge. Those teams they play you around and, we tell our kids football down there is different. Football is a way of life. It’s a big deal, so when you go down there and play those teams and win some games, it’s cool but it’s great for our kids. Like ok, yeah you’re going up against SEC guys now and they’re going to SEC schools so it’s different, but we look at it like a challenge and the kids love the challenge”.

With 19 players with division I offers, this young team is filled with incredible talent and high athletic ability. Here are some of the players that we discuss on the Our Lady of Good Counsel football team.