Season's greetings for area high school football teams

Enterprise, The (Brockton, MA) - Tuesday, August 25, 2009

By Adam Riglian
ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER

While baseball players are the boys of summer, football players are the season's whipping boy.

If you're lucky enough to still be on the diamond come late August, chances are your Babe Ruth, American Legion or recreational season went well. But, if you stepped on to a football field when high school practice opened Monday, life just changed.

The first three days of football aren't anyone's favorite. Players are weeks away from games and coaches are struggling to get them in shape in often oppressive heat before they can even get down to the playbook.

Through the heat and the running and the feeling of wearing 20 pounds of equipment after training (or in some cases sitting on the couch) in the offseason, it's a wonder that players come out for the sport at all.

And yet they do, in some cases more than team's can handle. With football pain comes football glory.

"We had our usual large group, 100-plus players trying out," said Brockton High coach Peter Colombo. "Overall, the kids were in good shape."

Big turnouts lead to another problem for coaching staffs - cuts. Not everyone has to deal with it, but the better the program, the more people want to be associated with it.

"We have to get down to around 60 players that we can effectively coach and provide for," Colombo said. "It's not an easy process, but we've gotten used to this, it's part of what goes on at the high school and I'm thankful there's that much interest.

"We expect kids to be at a certain physical condition at this point, so we evaluate all the kids to see where they are at physically. At this point, it's evaluating condition and talent."

The Boxers finished 9-4 last season, winning eight straight before losing to BC High in the EMass. Div. 1 Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium

Colombo is entering his sixth season and already owns a career 48-14 record along with two Super Bowl victories.

While Colombo's team is arguably known nationwide among high school sports enthusiasts and has loads of talent to pick from, other coaches are working nurture what little they get.

West Bridgewater has been a perennial title contender for years, but Coach Bill Panos had just 36 players come out as he prepares for his 24th season as Wildcats' head coach.

It may seem like a small turnout for most programs, but Panos is excited about his team's prospects.

"It's a pretty good crew for the smallest public high school with football in the state," Panos said, adding that they had good division amongst the classes. "It's promising for the future as well as this year."

The numbers encouraged him, but the typical first-day problems still nagged him.

"The first day is so busy ... two kids need helmets, two other kids didn't get a shirt and shorts, last-minute paper work to do, we've got medical equipment to put away, you have to find the footballs," Panos said. "No matter how much preparation you try to have, the first day is just utter confusion."

With his limited numbers, Panos knows the importance of not expecting too much out of his players too soon.

"We do it gradually," he said. "You don't want to kill them on the first day. We've got four or five weeks before our first game, so we have plenty of time to bring them up to speed."

While Panos has built up his team's tradition as a coach with the Wildcats, others are just born into it. Colombo is one of those program lifers who revel in what opening day means.

Brockton's tradition was built long before Peter succeeded his father, Armond, as head coach of the Boxers in 2004, but it is something he holds sacred, having been a part of the team since the early Seventies.

"For me, it's been a lifelong rite of passage," Colombo said. "It's August, we're going back to school and we're getting ready to play football.

"It certainly brings back a lot of memories for me, because I've been doing it at Brockton since 1972."

To Abington's Jim Kelliher, Colombo's rite of passage is more of a teaching opportunity. As far as Kelliher is concerned, one thing matters above all else in the first few days of practice.

"For the first couple of days, you don't focus too much on the games ahead, or even the scrimmages ahead, you focus on the key things, defensively that's tackling techniques," Kelliher said.

The Green Wave, which won their fourth straight South Shore League title last season before falling to Norton in the Div. 3 EMass. playoffs, are trying to find some leadership after losing 17 seniors to graduation last season.

"It was very energetic," Kelliher said of the first day of practice. "They are very upbeat."

"Going through all the sessions, the individual sessions the agility sessions, it had a nice tempo to it."

Players can't hit until full pad practice begins Thursday, but they can still learn how to bring down an opponent.

Conditioning, technique, tradition, winning, all are part of what make football great.

"They're excited to be there, especially the seniors, they want to get started," Whitman-Hanson coach Sean Clifford said. "They look forward to getting together and seeing each other, but then they just want to get the helmets on."

In 18 days, they'll strap them on for real for the season-opening Friday night. It's a tough wait, but the meaning is in the journey to the first kickoff.