All the Tomcats in town should check out Jim Owczarski's piece on the East Aurora football program, which will appear in the Tuesday edition of The Beacon-News.

Coach Bill Bryant resigned last week, so we figured now was as good a time as any to take a look at the various problems that plague East Aurora football.

Bryant went 3-51 during his six-year tenure, and this 2011 season was surely a difficult one for the Tomcat coaches, players and fans. It's one thing to lose. It's another thing to step on the field knowing you have no chance to be competitive.

East Aurora scored only four touchdowns all season and was outscored 470-25 on its way to its sixth 0-9 campaign since 2001. The closest Tomcats game this year was a 42-6 loss to Yorkville in Week 2.

Bryant drew praise from East Aurora athletic director Cam Leadbetter, who described the coach as "a good guy, a good family man and he came to work every day and he did a pretty good job with the kids. He was always there. It wasn't for a lack of effort by any means."

No argument here. I've always said there really is no way we can effectively judge Bryant's game day coaching ability. He led an overmatched group of kids out on to the field every Friday night for the past six seasons. They tried their hardest, I'm sure, but they had a snowball's chance in hell in many of these games.

The reasons East Aurora has been losing go far beyond any one coach or any of the individual players -- past or present. There are certain long-term issues that need to be addressed, and we felt it was appropriate for our newspaper to point out those things.

I think Jim did a fine job with the article, and we hope it generates some discussion in the community as Leadbetter and other administrators at East High embark on trying to find the right coach to move the Tomcat program forward in the future.