Wednesday, October 29, 2003

For all but the first week of the season, Canton High School's football team topped the Ann Arbor News' coaches poll.

That wasn't a surprise. After all, the Chiefs made believers out of nearly all the coaches casting ballots in the poll, which runs for the final time this week. The Chiefs cruised through the season with a 9-0 mark and a first-round date in the playoffs Friday night against Wayne Memorial, a team that Canton upended 34-21 on Sept. 12.

What was a surprise was that Canton coach Tim Baechler, one of the four coaches participating in the poll, didn't place his team at No. 1 once.

As in not ever.

His reason is also somewhat surprising, at least coming from a football coach who had just clinched the first undefeated regular season in school history. Being at the top is nice, but it's not worth the aggravation of wondering when you will fall from that spot, he says.

"When I first got here, I thought it would be great to be a No. 1 team," said Baechler, who has transformed Canton from Western Lakes Athletics Association also-ran to the perenially top team in the conference during his six years at the helm. "When I got to that point, all of a sudden I felt horrible. The pressure to win week after week was amazing. It's a heckuva lot easier to be a coach when you're building and not expected to win the next week. I don't know how (University of Michigan's) Lloyd Carr does it, or any of those guys."

That extraordinary confession aside, Baechler admits his team is very good - in fact, much better than he anticipated after spending all summer wondering whether his depleted and comparatively undersized offensive line could create holes for the likes of Chuck Shumacher and Devin Thomas.

"I've got a great bunch of kids," he said. "They expect to beat people."

But they shouldn't expect their coach to ever place them No. 1 in a poll, particularly since the ranking won't determine whether Canton will have a date in the Silverdome Nov. 29 - Baechler's biggest goal.

"Those rankings don't mean anything," he said. "If they did, don't you think I'd vote for myself?"

Rob Hoffman can be reached at (734) 994-6814 or rhoffman@annarbornews.com