AMHERST — Chris Ehorn Jr. sits at the front of the bus. His first scrimmage as the head coach of the Amherst Regional Hurricanes just ended and he’s eager to get back home to his family.
From the back of the bus, players make jokes to one another, sometimes talking about the game. Curse words are flying out of everyone’s mouth, some worse than others. Ehorn does not say anything, he just keeps track of how many are said.
Ehorn, unlike other coaches, hates cursing.
“We have a rule. You can’t cuss. There’s no cussing in practice and there’s no cussing in the locker room,” he said.
The California native’s policy on cursing is that for every bad word, every player on the team must do five burpees.
“I never appreciate, even in business, people that can’t control their mouth,” he said. “It’s something that I know is hard to change overnight.”
The following practice after that bus ride, each player had to do 180 burpees.
Players rumbled about the practice “not being productive” and one actually quit the team in the middle of the practice, though he did return. But a statement was made that day and Ehorn was changing the Hurricanes’ culture.
“I’ve never been on a team where no cussing was a rule, that’s just my preference because I feel that if we are disciplined with our language, then we will be disciplined with our schoolwork and then we will be disciplined on the practice field with our work ethic,” he said.
Ehorn, who is in his fourth year with the team, has guided the Hurricanes to an 11-0 record and a trip to the state Division 5 Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium. Amherst will face Swampscott (9-2) at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.
It will be Amherst’s first chance at a state championship since the current playoff format was created in 2011.
The program wasn’t close to a state title when the Marietta, Calif., native took over the Hurricanes in 2016. At the time, Ehorn was the fifth head coach in the last 10 years for the Hurricanes.
Amherst finished 1-10 in 2015, and was 11-31 combined from 2012-15.
Ehorn had only five freshmen join the team during his first season. But the Hurricanes finished 4-7 in Year 1 and 6-4 in Year 2, the first winning season since 2012. That year they reached the postseason for the first time since 1999.
Last season, Amherst went 7-3 before losing in the semifinal round of the Western Massachusetts Division 5 for a second straight year.
Though he has made progress (28-14 over 3-plus season), Ehorn always reinforces the rules on his team to make sure his players are aware of their actions.
“You have to have structure and rules and you need to stick to them,” he said.
Though cursing is a part of sports culture, many players support Ehorn’s policies.
“You feel bad a little bit when you break the rule. You want to do what makes coach happy,” senior quarterback J.B. Mills said.
“It’s the one thing that separates us from a lot of other schools,” senior defensive linemen Jack Nagy added.