South Western's Mike Felton and Ryan Dotson get some lunch on Thursday at the YAIAA media day at the York Expo Center. (THE EVENING SUN -- SHANE DUNLAP )

York, PA - Don Seidenstricker is 55 years old. But on Friday nights, he's a little kid again.

Because of this, the South Western High School head football coach won't be calling it quits anytime soon.

Sure, the York-Adams area's longest tenured head football coach has thought about retirement, but that won't come this season and Seidenstricker won't think about it for a while now. The Mustangs' skipper has football to think about, schemes to map out, opponents to study and most important, more young men to teach.

"I love it," Seidenstricker said at Thursday's YAIAA Football Media Day at the York Expo Center. "It's an extension of your career that is truly where you're able to do something that you feel is a genuine give-back to society, to work with kids, but yet allows you to be a little kid yourself on a Friday night."

And Seidenstricker wants to stick around for a while.

He spent a lot of this year's earlier months studying ways to improve his coaching style and tweak his practice regimens at Shippensburg University. There, Seidenstricker observed new drills, motivational tactics and ideas on how to use a brand new "pistol" offensive scheme from Red Raiders head coach Mark Maciejewski and offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich.

"Coming out of last year, I just wasn't comfortable and I tried to leave no stone unturned on maybe some things that we could do to tweak where we're at to try to make a re-connect," Seidenstricker said. "Because at age 55, we're two generations apart and trying to keep a connection with these guys, because I felt we let things slip last year somehow some way."

The Mustangs will be looking to improve on their 4-6 record from last season.

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The Hanover High football team will have a new coach calling the shots defensively.

Matt Osmun will bring a 3-4 base, cover-2 defense to the Nighthawks, who ran multiple sets last season.

Head coach Jason Potts is hoping Osmun's defense will be an improvement from last year, when the Nighthawks surrendered 244 points and allowed 238.7 yards per game.

Osmun last coached for New Oxford and helped the Colonials to an 11-2 record in 2006. Then, the Colonial defense gave up nearly as many yards as the 2010 Hanover team (233.3), but allowed its opponents to score just 142 points.

"He had been out (of coaching) for a couple of years because he had little kids," Potts said. "So he was taking a break. And he wanted to come back and it was a great fit for us."

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Littlestown football coach Mike Lippy is interviewed by local TV stations Thursday during YAIAA football media day at the York Expo Center. (Evening Sun -- Shane Dunlap)
Four days before high school practice may officially begin, Littlestown Thunderbolt players are already stewing.

Their thoughts, and those of their head coach, Mike Lippy, are centered on redemption.

The Bolts hammered all 10 regular season opponents by a combined score of 479-103 before getting throttled in the first round of the playoffs by Bermudian Springs, a team Littlestown beat 43-23 in Week 9.

"Week 11, the bottom line is they beat us," Lippy said. "We went from being the best team in the area to the worst team in the area in a matter of seven days."

The teams will meet again on Oct. 28 at Bermudian Springs High School.

"Week 11 came and you go 10-1," Lippy said. "It was like being 1-10. I had a lot of time to think about it."

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Some York-Adams teams will be sporting new looks on Friday nights.

Fairfield, Hanover and New Oxford will use different helmet designs this season.

The Green Knights will opt to go with a textualized "Knights" logo, as opposed to the plain green helmet they used last season. Head coach Mike Quealy quipped he "couldn't find a Knight logo I liked," so he decided to use plain text instead.


Hanover football coach Jason Potts shows off the repainted Nighthawk helmet, featuring a flat black scheme, during Thursday's YAIAA football media day at the York Expo Center. (Evening Sun -- Shane Dunlap)
The Nighthawks will retain their orange and black winged helmet look, similar to the designs used by The Fightin' Blue Hens of Delaware and Michigan Wolverines, but the color scheme has been tweaked a bit this season. Instead of going with a gloss black as in previous seasons, the helmet is now a matte finish with the orange wings.

The Colonials have the most radical new design and the biggest change.

Gone are the red helmets with the familiar New England Patriots-like logo. Now the Colonials will wear all white helmets, complete with white facemasks with a stylized "OX" logo.

"Most of you guys (the media) refer to us as 'The Ox' anyway," New Oxford head coach Matt Muller said. "It's common nomenclature. Helmets don't win football games, but certainly you've got to look good to feel good to play good. It's time to make some changes."

The flying Patriot logo isn't completely gone, however. The old New Oxford symbol can still be found on the helmet as a part of the O.

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