More high school teams practice all summer long
practiced upwards of 270 days since theend of the 2017 season.
Is it too much? Are kids being deprived of family vacations? Swimming pool sand picnics? Other outdoor activities? Dependson who you ask. Totten, the highly successful coach at perennial power Central Catholic, believes there is too much emphasisbeing placed on the sport.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing it go back to the old days, where they’re enjoying the summer, working or whateverthey choose to do,” he said. “You want to let the kids be kids. Let them goplay baseball.”
In a sampling of coaches from Class 1A to 6A, all said they try to account for family trips and other summer activities.
Render, the dean of WPIAL coaches with 398 victories, is so precise in his summer program that he provides his players and their families with a detailed summer schedule. Practices begin at 9:30 and are typically over by noon, which allows players to compete in other sports, work,or, to hang out and be kids.
He annually gives the team a twoweek break at the end of June. This enables their families to make plans for vacations, college visits and the like.
“I’m not saying it was instantly successful,”he said of his scheduling, “but as time went on, a lot of the parents worked with us on it. Not all of them are back on July 1, but most are.”
At Franklin Regional, coach Greg Botta said the key, at least for him, is finding the proper balance for his players. Football-overload, he believes, can induce negative effects for a generation of players — and parents — who look at the sport differentlydue to a fear of concussions.
In 2017, according to a survey by the National Association of State High School Federations, participation in high school football was down 3.5 percent. Much of this can be tracedto the NFL’s admission in 2015 that there is a link between head blows and brain disease. The league agreed to a $1 billion settlement to compensate former players who had accusedthe NFL of hiding the risks.
“I played high school football at Penn Hills, then IUP,” said Botta, who has been at Franklin Regional since 1994 and is a member of the Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Hall of Fame. “I suffered numerous concussions, then joined the staff at IUP my sophomore year. ... I have been doing this for 24 years [at Franklin Regional], and I don’t think giving up nine hours a week is too much. You’ve got to find some time and balance. We are losing young men in this sport. I don’t want to consumetoo much of their summer.”
A major component to summer training is 7-on-7 scrimmages. These all-pass, non-contact games continue togrow in popularity around the U.S. The majority of WPIAL teams participate in tournament sand/ or scrimmages throughout the summer.
South Side Beaver played host to a tournament this summer, in addition to participating in three scrimmages. Upper St. Clair competed at an event hosted by Washington & Jefferson College, while also hosting several district schools at its South Hills campus. Every coach interviewed for this story placed his team inmore than one 7-on-7 scrimmage.
“We love going to these ones because it is permissible to stop and teach if necessary; you get the balance of being able to compete, but at the same time, understanding that it’s the summer and the teaching aspect has to be the priority,” South Park’s Rieck said. “The same rang true at the Elizabeth Forward 7-on-7 that we attended about a week ago. The coaches that host at these schoolsprovide the perfect balance of what the 7-on-7 was originally intended to do — give your kids a chance to compete and teach at the same time. We understand that outside competition is necessary, but in my mind, you cannot focus your entire summer attention on 7-on7’s. If the most important aspect of any team [the line] is not involved, then howrealistic can it really be?”
Although summer practices are optional, some would argue that this is a misnomer. Optional-but-mandatory is how one retired WPIAL coach, who asked not to be named, described the offseason training sessions.
“If you don’t go, it puts you behind otherkids, no question,” he said. “Positions can be won and lost in the summer.”
Rendersaid the players ultimately decide how to approach summer workouts.And while he would never force a player to train in the offseason, it stands to reason that those who do participate are better preparedfor opening day.
“We normally work out for six consecutive weeks before fall camp,” he said. “In those six weeks, we do a variety of things, including weights, distance running, speed training, throwing and catching and kicking activities.So, when it comes to Aug. 6 [for the heat-acclimatization period], if our guys aren’t in shape or don’t know their base assignments, it’s theirfault.”
Achallenge that football teams face in the summer — beyond vacations and non-football activities — is the number of sports that are played. There are AAU basketball leagues andtournaments. Ditto for soccer and lacrosse,not to mention baseball.
That’s why coaches face the fine line of trying to promote football without devaluing other sports. Luke Travelpiece, the coach at South Side Beaver, believes it is essential that these young men diversify their sports portfolios.
“Being at a small school, we need to encourage our athletes to play multiple sports to try to attain consistent success across the board,” he said. “Our baseball team did really well this year and extended their season, which made their summer league schedule more compact. Some kids would split based upon need for each sport. Some kids chose to focus on the sport they liked more. Some varsity baseball players didn’t playColt [League] so they could focus on football, while I still haven’t seen some because they are playing Colt [League]. Our basketball team is also in a summer league. Coach [Bob] Harrison and I are in constant contact. Because they are in a set Monday league, we scheduled our practices to be other nights. When their playoffs stretched into the other nights of the week, we talked about how to best share the kids to benefit bothprograms.”
Always one to offer an unfiltered opinion, Render is nonplussed by the idea of an athlete walking away from football without thinking things through.
“I don’t mind a kid playing more thanone sport — the competition factor of a basketball game or baseball game or track meet is great,” he said. “What perturbs me is when we have kids who say I’m only going to concentrate on basketball or lacrosse or whatever it might be. Well, that’s craziness. They’re only young once. They only get these opportunities once. And to tell me they’re going to concentrate on lacrosse, give me a break. It’s the same way with basketball.”
Coaches differ on the times of their workouts. Upper St. Clair, Central Catholic, Franklin Regional and South Park, for example, train in the mornings, while McKeesport and South Side Beaver practice in the evenings.Again, there is no formula.
“As time has gone on and the specialization of athletes has become more of the norm, every high school sport has become year-round,” said South Park’s Rieck. “It is not easy for the student-athlete because they are faced with decisions that I know that I never had to deal with when I was in high school. When football season was over the hooper’s went to hoop; the wrestlers went and did their thing. Every sport had their specific season, and when one ended, you transitioned into the next. It’s not as clear-cutthese days.” Instead,it’s the new normal. “You can skip the summer altogether,” Totten said. “But in the end, you’ll have a hard time competing. That’s just the way things are today, whetheryou like it or not.”