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Culpepper has Tech setting its sights on very top

Staff photo by BILL WARD

C.C. Culpepper has delivered on his promise to bring Tampa Bay Tech to football prominence in short order.

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 12, 2009

Updated: 09/12/2009 02:50 am

TAMPA - The pep rally had enough energy to power a small town. It was Friday afternoon before Friday night lights. You know, they teach an electricity program at Tampa Bay Technical High School.

Meet the new kids near the top of the Hillsborough County football power grid.

Defending state champion Plant was stunned last Friday. Coach C.C. Culpepper - talk about energy - and his Tampa Bay Tech Titans came from 24 points down in the second half to win 32-30.

Next week, the goal is to travel to Seffner and shock two-time state champion Armwood, which handed Tech its only two losses last season, stomping the Titans in the regular season and beating them 50-20 in the playoffs.

"Plant and Armwood, they're the SEC of the county," Culpepper said. "They built the model for winning it all. Plant did it. Armwood did it. We can do it, too."

Friday's home opener against Riverview was wiped out by lightning and monsoon. It shaped up as a possible "trap" game for Tech, sandwiched between Plant and Armwood. Culpepper worried that his team, No. 2 in the Tribune Top 10, would look past Riverview to top-ranked Armwood.

No more sandwich.

Armwood is next.

"I'm lying if I say we haven't thought about that game," Culpepper said. "We'll be ready."

This man is always ready.

Thursday afternoon, Culpepper, in his bare feet, spray painted the numbers next to the yard markers on the field at Titan Stadium. He wore a floppy Bucs hat, shorts and a TBT baseball shirt. The job took about three hours. It was about 111 degrees out.

"I like doing it," Culpepper insisted. "It gives me time to think."

He thought back to December 2006, when he was introduced as Tech head coach. He stood in the school cafeteria and told his players he expected a state championship by his third season, 2009.

"They kind of stared at me," Culpepper said.

Tampa Bay Tech was then in the midst of a 20-game losing streak. It hadn't won a game in two seasons. Oh, and the Titans had never won so much as a single playoff game in school history. Culpepper, 37, a Tampa native who played for Armwood, was steadfast.

The Titans won 10 games last season and won a playoff game at last. Then there was last Friday night, that trip back from Plant.

"It was loud and it was exciting," Culpepper said. "Picture a bus filled with 16- and 17-year-olds singing second- and third-grade nursery rhymes on the way back. Even the bus driver was yelling 'Tech! Tech! Tech!' as she drove."

Tech is in the conversation. Also in it is star fullback Maurice Hagens. The powerful Tech senior carried his team past Plant, rushing for 147 yards. "And he's the greatest kid in the world," Culpepper said. Hagens, verbally committed to Miami, has a weighted GPA of 3.2 and is in Tech's architecture program. For now, he's about building a state champion.

Culpepper has these Titans believing. This coach is that kind of dreamer - and doer.

Culpepper was a star defensive back for tiny Tennessee Wesleyan before playing arena football. He then spent eight years as a firefighter in St. Petersburg until a knee injury on the job ended that. He eventually turned to coaching, joining the Armwood staff under Sean Callahan, who as an Armwood assistant coached Culpepper.

At a Super Bowl function last winter, Culpepper met a fellow energy guy - Bucs head coach Raheem Morris, who later hired Culpepper as an intern for Bucs organized team activities and training camp.

"He's an extremely hard worker who has shown so much initiative to learn here," Morris said. "I've really enjoyed getting to work with him."

"He's younger than me, but he's my idol," Culpepper said. "He's going to get it done."

C.C. Culpepper smiled.

"We hope to do the same."

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