POLAND – Game time is little more than 24 hours away and Rick Kramer has gathered his team around the 50 yard line and is going through what is literally a laundry list of issues for his team’s first official game.

Game-pants – pick them up after practice. Uniforms – change into them at Lake Region. Diet – eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, stay away from the milk.

Kramer and his staff go over virtually every detail yesterday as they prepare the Poland Regional High School football team for its varsity debut, which is tonight at Lake Region High School in Naples. Nothing is too minute.

“Common sense should prevail,” Kramer said. “If your bus leaves at five o’clock, you should be here before five o’clock.”

Every team takes a certain amount of anxiety into their season opener, but it’s even more evident when you’re playing the first varsity game in the school’s history.

“We could see it today in practice. Practice wasn’t as crisp as it should have been,” Kramer said. “I think right now, it’s peaked.”

The journey to tonight’s opener began more than two years ago, when the PRHS Football Committee began a campaign to raise nearly $40,000 to get the program off the ground. Local businesses and volunteers backed the effort, and by last fall, the Knights had their own JV team.

Football wasn’t totally foreign to PRHS students, some of whom have played the game going back to elementary school. Several of the current Knights played JV with Buckfield High School before Poland formed its own JV team last year.

That squad went 6-2 in its first year, surprising many of their opponents and even people in their own back yard.

“I don’t think a lot of people expected much. They just kind of thought we were a club team,” said Josh Gilpatrick, a junior offensive tackle/defensive end. “It showed our community that we’re serious about the football thing and we really want to get it rolling and start a foundation for something that will be good for the community and everybody around it.”

The nucleus of that team has been augmented this year by numerous athletes from other sports, including the soccer team.

“I figured why not try it my senior year,” said senior split end/cornerback Stevie Ray, who played three years of varsity soccer before joining the football squad this year. “Last year, I was playing soccer but I was always kind of looking over at the football team, wishing I was over there.”

Wishing he was there was one thing. Making the commitment to helping establish a new program was another. The players have been learning that there’s more to football than showing up for practice.

If they hadn’t learned it already, last week’s final scrimmage against Gorham drove the point home.

“That was an experience,” Ray said. “It showed us what we need to work on. We tried a different defense against them and tested things out, and it worked a little bit but they’re so much stronger. They’ve been in the weight room a lot longer and they just showed us how much commitment it takes to be a competitive football team.”

Gorham joined the Campbell Conference in Class B in 2001 after spending a couple of years in a developmental league. By their third season, the Rams were Western Class B champions.

The Knights hope their ascent is just as rapid. They believe they’re closer than a lot of other people might think.

“There are a lot of teams that are big, and we’re a smaller team, but I think we’re one of the faster teams in the league, so if we can take our speed and our smarts and put em to the test against these big brutes, I think we can take them out,” said Ian Beaule, a senior fullback/linebacker.

“I think we’re going to pull a shocker on people. We’re going to earn respect this year,” Gilpatrick said. “I’m not saying we’re hoping for a Super Bowl championship or anything, but I think we want to earn some respect.”

The players don’t just want to earn respect around the Campbell Conference. None of the three towns of PRHS, Poland, Minot and Mechanic Falls, has had a varsity football team since Mechanic Falls High School more than 40 years ago.

A sense of responsibility hovers around the team, that they are laying the foundation for something that generations that follow them will enjoy.

Kramer thinks it’s even bigger than that.

“We had one of the players from the last Mechanic Falls team stop by and talk to the team at the last scrimmage,” Kramer said. “It’s been a long time coming for this area.”

“Having three towns who were going to six different high schools come together and make a community in six years is very difficult to do,” he added. “We hope that football lends to that and hopefully all three towns can get together and support each other.”