The football program is not the only area where Reggie Kennedy is devoting his rebuilding efforts at Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School.

Having completed his first full year as athletics director, Kennedy is placing his energy this summer towards improving the school's other sports. Along with hiring new head coaches for baseball, softball and wrestling, Kennedy hopes to oversee the development of feeder programs similar to football and basketball which will eventually help bridge the huge talent gap O-W currently faces in those sports compared to other Class 4-A programs.

"My face is on the overall program, not just the football program," he said. "Our feeder program is not where it needs to be for us to compete on the level we're on now. I think in football and basketball and probably track, those are our best sports right now which have pretty good feeder programs."

Because of the lack of success in sports other than basketball and football, the last two years have seen O-W rank near the bottom of the Director's Cup standings. This past year saw O-W's point total increase in part due to the football team returning to the playoffs and the boys' basketball team reaching the second round of the Class 4-A playoffs.

Kennedy admits as an overall athletics program, O-W is 'playing catch up' since many of the youngsters participating in the spring sports are going against more seasoned, experienced teams who've gone through a feeder system.

"What's happening in our spring sports, we've got younger kids playing against a lot of seasoned kids and what's happening is our kids are missing out on the fundamental part on the lower level," Kennedy said. "In spring sports, we've got more ninth and tenth grade kids participating against older kids. What's happening now, we're actually fielding (junior varsity) kids and they're going against varsity kids, to be honest with you, and that's something we've got to get away from."

By hiring more seasoned coaches who will take the student-athletes' best interest at heart towards developing them into better players, retaining those coaches and coordinating with the recreation department and middle schools to strengthen the feeder programs, Kennedy believes O-W will begin to 'close the gap' in athletics over the next two years.

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