Just about, if not all, high school football coaches and players have been waiting for Aug. 11 to arrive — which it did Monday, which was the first day of organized practice for this upcoming 2025 season.
“The kids are biting at the nails to get out there and start practice,” Muldrow coach Logan Coatney said. “The summer workouts can become monotonous a little bit and you go through the motions day to day.”
“We’re ready,” Roland coach Greg Wise said. “It’s been a long summer. It becomes monotonous at a certain point of the summer. It’s been 2.5 months of the same thing. We’re ready to get into some football. We’ve been in the weight room all summer. We’ve been getting our sprints in. We’ve been getting all those things done. We’re just ready to move on to football. They’re ready to get after it. They’ve told me so. When we start practice Monday, I fully expect that those guys are going to be tuned in and be ready. They’re going to be listening. They’re going to want to learn. I fully expect that from them. I’m ready to see what they’re going to do.”
“I think everybody is ready to get started,” Central coach Jeremy Thompson said. “We’ll come in during the mornings and do a little bit of conditioning, then hit the fields in the evenings. When you get past June and get into July, you feel like you’re ready for it (football) to go ahead and start. Our workouts have been good. Summer (Pride) was good. The kids have worked extremely hard. They’re ready to get the football out and play.”
“They’re a lot more anxious than they were last year,” Gans coach Gary Hixon said. “I’ve had kids message me on our (Gans Public Schools) app and say, ‘What time is practice today?’ I tell them, ‘We’re practicing on Monday the 11th.’ Last year, we were sitting here trying to get to know these kids. They didn’t know what to expect from us, and we (coaches) didn’t know what to expect from them. This year, we got a chance to know a lot about each other. Now, they’re anxious (for practice to start). We’ve got a lot of young kids. They’re just super anxious and ready to go.”
In the 1980s and further back, what we know as “Summer Pride” was truly not in existence, where football teams basically have workouts for two months — separated by “Dead Week” near the end of June into early July. All the local coaches said having a “Summer Pride” is huge in trying to get their players to be the best they can be.
“We had a great summer,” said Coatney, whose Bulldogs were slated to have their first practice at 2 p.m. Monday. “We had a great group of kids showing up on a daily basis. Once (Monday) gets here, our kids will be full tilt and ready to rock and roll. There’s not a high school kid out there who thinks they can take 2.5 months off and decide to come back out and be at full strength. We take great pride in doing our workouts during the summer, get our kids acclimated to the heat, and understanding what their bodies can do and can’t do. That, in turn, allows us (coaches) to make sure our student athletes are healthy as we start twoa- days.”
“We had a good core group,” said Wise, whose Rangers started practice at 3 p.m. Monday. “Most of our kids we had showing up averaged about 90 to 95 percent attendance rate all summer. I can’t complain about it. I’m thankful for them. Unlike last year when we got thrown into it when I was hired last July, it’s a lot different now. Just being able to be with them all summer, it’s a tremendous help to be able to do that instead of coming in basically a month before the season starts.”
“It keeps the kids in shape,” said Thompson, whose Tigers began their first practice of the season at 7 p.m. Monday. “Over the summer, you want to get stronger and faster. Throughout the month of June, there’s 7-on-7s. It’s one of those things where you know you’re prepping yourself to be the best you can whenever you get started (with football) and the official starting date. There comes a point in there where everybody is getting really anxious to get started.”
“We had, at times, more kids at Summer Pride this year,” said Hixon, whose Grizzlies started practice around 2:30 p.m. Monday. “It was very productive. They’re all a lot of young kids who did this. They’ve put in a lot of effort and work. I’m anxious to see how well all the work they’ve put in is going to transform onto the football field (for the 2025 season). We even went to a team camp this year for the first time in a long time. They’ve bought in, and they’ve had a good time (this summer). They’re anxious. I hope (Summer Pride workouts progress) carries over (into 2025 season).”
