[8/29/03]First-year Greenville-St. Joseph coach Leroy Byars will have more than game plans on his mind when his team plays at St. Aloysius in the season opener for both teams.

Beatrice Wise, a 35-year-old French and biology teacher at the school, died of an aneurysm on Wednesday. The school closed Wednesday and Thursday in Wise’s memory, and many of the students were hit hard by her death.

“It’s been very difficult,” Byars said. “We’ve been working hard to get past it, though.”

Byars said he hopes that playing football can take his players’ minds off the loss of a beloved teacher.

“Some of the juniors and seniors were really affected by it, but they should be mature enough to handle it,” he said.

Byars has tried to keep his team’s daily routines the same, despite the cancellation of classes.

“We practiced yesterday,” Byars said Thursday. “And we’ll practice again today. We’re trying to work around the players and adjust our schedules to accomodate the guys.”

St. Joe trudged through an 0-11 season last year and Byars is looking to improve the team drastically. The Fighting Irish return seven starters on offense and defense and have 40 players on their roster.

St. Al coach Jim Taylor said he does not know what to expect from the first-year coach’s offense.

“This is the second year in a row that they’ve had a new head coach, so we absolutely have no idea what they’re going to do,” Taylor said. “I called around trying to find out some things, but I’ve got nothing concrete. Basically defensive-wise, we’re just trying to prepare for any type of situation.”