Camden begins a new era with victory over Richfield in high school football

The result on the field, while heavy with the expectations of a new season, was secondary in importance. To the players, the victory was sweet.

In its first game as the newly named Camden High School, the former Minneapolis Patrick Henry used an attacking defense and an efficient offense to defeat visiting Richfield 24-2 on Friday evening in north Minneapolis.

With just eight games in a high school football regular season, all games are significant, but the game carried the added weight of a surrounding community committed to building a new identity.

The school had been named for Patrick Henry, a Revolutionary War-era hero, since its inception in the 1940s.

In recent years, calls for changing the name gained momentum. Henry, an urban school with a significantly diverse enrollment, was no longer representative of the community it served because of Patrick Henry’s status as a slave owner from Virginia with no ties to Minneapolis or Minnesota.

“At first, I thought he was from Minneapolis or something, but when I heard he was from Virginia and had slaves, it made sense to me,” said Camden assistant coach Mark “Dolo” Harris. “We need something that represents this community.”

“This is an important game for this school, this community,” said Patriots head coach Mark Heiser, beginning his 13th season with the program and proudly wearing a Minneapolis Camden shirt. “We need to get started the right way.”

Added Harris: “We’re trying to build a new culture here.”

While the game looked every bit like the first of the season, with its requisite mistakes and misplays, it was clear from the outset that Camden was the more focused bunch.

The Patriots — the school retained the nickname it had when it was Patrick Henry — moved the ball well, with senior quarterback Jadis Hartman scoring on a 14-yard run in the first quarter.

Hartman’s score was noted pridefully by announcer Marques Zackary as the “first touchdown in Camden history,” bringing cheers from the fans.

Hartman, playing quarterback for the first time in his career, added a 14-yard scoring pass to junior receiver Patrick Mix in the second quarter, giving Camden a 12-0 lead.

A safety — one of the few mistakes the Patriots made all evening — made the score 12-2 at halftime.

Richfield, mistake-prone before halftime, settled in the third quarter and started to make inroads on the Camden defense. But Hartman, playing with confidence and poise, daggered Richfield’s hopes for a comeback when he ran 71 yards down the left side for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter, making the score 18-2.

“We wanted this one really bad,” Hartman said. “We were lifting weights all summer. Not only was it our first game as Camden, it’s also a game against a team in our section. This feels really good.”

Heiser noted the dominance of the Camden defense, which forced three turnovers and held the Spartans out of the end zone.

“I think our defense really set the tone early in the first half and then we had some nice long drives, running the clock,” he said. “Jadis has really come along in the last two weeks. I was kind of surprised by his speed, to be honest with you.”

Heiser closed his postgame comments to his team saying, “This is our first win as Camden. That’s a big deal.”

His team followed with a rousing cheer. Clearly, the name change has been well received.

“We’re changing the narrative,” senior linebacker J’Hakeem Scott said “That’s what we set out to do.”