‘Midnight Madness’ comes to Porterville
Panthers hold unique practice
With Sunday night rolling into Monday morning, players from Porterville High School’s varsity football team made their way to the locker rooms in preparation for the team’s first ever midnight practice.
Walking through the pitchblack parking lot across their lighted practice field, rather than looking sleepy and tired at 11:50 p.m., players were smiling and laughing, seemingly excited for a new way to start their official first day of football practice.
“I thought it was a little crazy at first but it’s something new and we needed something new,” said senior running back and safety, Mark Inman, after practice. “It was different for sure, I’ve never done anything like this before.”
Midnight practice, also known as “Midnight Madness” throughout the country, is the first practice of the high school football season that kicks off at midnight on the first day of the fall season. The practice is highly popular in places like Texas, where whole towns live and breathe by their high school football teams.
Sprinting onto the field at 12:01 a.m., players were divided into three teams and went through different team building stations for 20 minutes. Following the team building exercises, the players and coaches went back into the locker room for a team meeting before returning to have a full practice for a little over two hours.
“This practice was actually pretty good for me,” said senior tight end and linebacker, Oscar Esquivel. “I like more of the night practices because there’s more intensity. And we’re just used to playing games at night so it just felt good.”
Parents also showed up and took pictures of the players during the team building portion before heading to the bleachers or their cars to watch the rest of the practice.
Throughout the practice first-year head coach, Mike Machado, made a point to remind the players that they were working while everyone else was sleeping.
“You hear that noise?” yelled out Machado, to which one of his players replied that he could only hear silence.
“All your competitors are sleeping right now,” said Machado. “You’re getting better.”
The general idea of midnight practices is to instill a mindset into players that they want to be first in everything and never waste any time at getting better.
“You’ve just been given a chance to play the entire fall, minute for minute,” said Machado to the team after practice. “Seniors, can’t beat that. You just showed up on your senior year and got every minute in, got better right now.”
Nearly every single player from the team was at the early morning practice, with one player showing up about midway through after recently returning from a family member’s wedding in San Francisco. On crutches but in attendance, was junior linebacker John Herrera who had surgery a month ago to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and meniscus in his knee that had bothered him since his freshman year.
“I’m here to do my part and support my team,” said Herrera. He added that he was happy to be able to finally walk around again.
The early practice was a good start for the team that is coming off a 2-8 (1-4 East Yosemite League) season and the positive attitudes will hopefully carry through the rest of the season.
“Basically, our thought process throughout the year is that we want to get on the field as soon as possible in the fall. We want to be the first team on the field and the last team off, hopefully,” said Machado. “That’s the goal, to play as long as possible.”
Porterville’s seasonopener is at home against West on Thursday, Aug. 31. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.