Section mulls limiting contact
Tokay High football coach Michael Holst would be OK with a pending proposal for players having less time with full-contact in pads.
One of the action items on the agenda for the Sac-Joaquin Section’s Board of Mangers’ meeting, which will take place at The Reserve at Spanos Park in Stockton on Wednesday, April 4, is a proposal that would limit full contact to no more than 45 minutes per day for a total of 90 per minutes per week. The current bylaw, which went into place prior to the start of the 2015 season, allows full contact to no more than 90 minutes per day for a total of 180 minutes per week.
The time limitation applies only to full-contact, which is described by USA Football as a drill run in game-like conditions and is the only time that players are taken to the ground.
“As far as the amount of time we don’t really do a whole lot of contact anyway,” said Holst, who is also the school’s athletic director. “This is not going to affect us.”
Last fall, Holst said that his squad was well below the 180 minutes allowed each week once games started. After the first three days of conditioning last August, teams in the section were allowed to suit up in pads and helmets. Players learning the fundamentals hitting, blocking and tackling would be emphasis the first three weeks in practice.
“I don’t think any of the coaches were hitting the max (time the last three seasons),” said Will DeBoard, the section’s assistant commissioner.
Once Tokay started preparing for its games last season, which started with its Week 0
opener at Heritage of Brentwood toward the end of August, and through the season, the hitting became limited. During its bye weeks in recent years, Tokay would not conduct any hitting.
“We’re recouping,” Holst said.
Holst, part of the section’s
football committee, saidhe feels the proposal should pass at next month’s meeting.
“I don’t think it’ll be poorly received across the way,” Holst said. “It wasn’t like they pulled this out of nowhere.”
DeBoard feels most high school football coaches want their players to build their energy toward pounding their opponents on Friday
nights and Saturday afternoon/evening games.
“In our discussions, it seems like our schools are going to support this,” DeBoard said. “The feeling is you don’t want to have kids beating up each other in practices,”
Contact reporter Mike Bush at mikeb@lodinews.com. Follow on Twitter: @MBushLodiSports.