By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
The first day isn’t even the first day anymore.
The LHSAA Handbook says the opening day for high school football practice was Monday, August 5.
OK, LHSAA … if you say so.
The reality is that August 5 isn’t much different than July 5 or June 5. All that the title of “first day” really means is to continue what you’ve been doing all along with summer workouts.
“We are with these kids constantly. What we do is year-round,” said Parkway coach Coy Brotherton. “We took off the Fourth of July week and that’s the first week we didn’t do football since Christmas break. Basically, it’s football for 49 of 52 weeks a year.”
It’s not as if the coaches walk out to that “first practice” and try to start figuring out how the team is going to shape up.
“We are already starting to watch film now and organize practices,” Bossier coach Gary Smith said. “We pretty much know what we have. We had a good spring and you learn a lot from that. We feel like we know where we’re at and know where we need to improve.”
“We are two or three weeks from having a scrimmage with Ouachita and we are already watching film,” Brotherton said. “Everything has been issued, everything is ready to go. You may have a kid who needs a new chin strap, but we are ready to go.”
The real “first day” happens Monday, when all the heat acclimation has been done and the pads get strapped on. That’s when the dynamics of practice takes a dramatic turn.
“We are doing the same thing, but it’s more of a mindset that the season is here,” said Loyola first-year coach John Sella. “People are taking it a lot more seriously and holding themselves accountable. There’s no going through the motions because it’s here.”
“We are ready to get the shoulder pads on because it’s been a few months,” Smith said. “But you spend so much time with them during the summer, there’s really no anticipation to it because you’ve been with them all summer.”
Well, most all of them. There is the occasional athlete who decides he wants to play football when August comes around. “We had picture day this week and we had a couple of kids show up who we haven’t seen in two months,” Brotherton said.
“There’s so much stuff you can do now that you couldn’t before,” said Smith, who is in his 31st year in coaching. “There’s really no a-ha moment during workouts when you see something you didn’t expect to see.”
“I’m in year 20 and I can tell you this for sure: There’s going to be challenges out there,” Brotherton said. “Something out there is going to be different.”
Getting ready for the season might be a smoother transition than it was in the past, but that doesn’t mean that all the details have been ironed out. You never know when a player is going to want to change his uniform number or show up for practice with the hip pads on backwards.
“Oh yeah, we deal with that,” Smith said.
“This time of year is fun because of the preparation,” Brotherton said. “You do so much in the offseason with them that the next 15 or 16 weeks is rewarding. Competition is fun. That’s why we coach.”
“There’s more structure to their day,” Sella said. “Things go a lot smoother when you do that way.”
It’s been nine months since they have coached a game, so the anticipation level for the coaches is definitely on the rise.
“We are ready to coach a game, I can tell you that,” Brotherton said. “When you get closer to the pads coming on, the excitement level goes up. We are a lot more excited now than we were on June 1.”
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com