Eager players happy to return to practice field
ORANGE CITY — While hundreds of thousands around Florida continue to recover from power outages and flooding caused by Hurricane Irma, high school football players and coaches found some normalcy Monday by returning to the field.
Athletic schedules have been in disarray for the past three weeks due to weather-related cancellations and postponements. But teams across Central Florida returned to the routine coaches long for when schools reopened and afternoon football practices finally resumed across the region.
“The legs are a little tired, but it’s great to come back out here, because sitting in the house all day watching the hurricane on the news and all the weather and the rain is depressing,” Orange City University senior Micah Mickens said in a break during his team’s Monday practice under an overcast sky and a cool breeze.
“It’s a refreshing feeling now to come out here and run and get some work in and actually play a game on Friday again.”
University was among the first teams in the area to take the field in 2017 when they opened the season nearly a month ago on a Thursday night at Dr. Phillips.
The Titans haven’t played a single snap since. Their loss to DP is their only game played in the first
four weeks of the season.
University had its Week 2 game at Sebastian River canceled. Plans to travel to Tallahassee and then Lakeland the following week, to play a makeup game, were both canceled due to weather. Then the Titans’ scheduled Week 4 game vs. Seminole was postponed due to Irma.
“It’s been a crazy couple weeks,” University coach Brian Kells said. “It was a real roller coaster for our players, thinking they’re playing three different teams in a matter of a week. But we just wanted to get a game in. We didn’t care who we were playing at that point.”
Embarking on the first normal Monday-throughFriday week of its season has University refocused for what will be the Titans’ first Friday night lights game, should the weather cooperate.
To add to the excitement, Kells presented his team with new alternate helmets before taking the practice field Monday for a workout that was dampened by light rain.
“We’ve been asking for these helmets for years,” said University running back Lorenzo Lingard. “It’s a blessing for it to come. It took a long time, but coach Kells is a great coach and he gets things done.”
Teams in Orange, Volusia, Seminole and Lake counties were not permitted to hold official practices with school out last week but that didn’t stop players from getting together to stay in shape. Lingard was among a group of University seniors who rounded up teammates for informal workouts after Irma passed through.
With the new helmets and Friday’s crucial district game at Lake Brantley on the horizon, the Titans are happy to look ahead.
“With the special surprise and Lake Brantley coming up, we can’t be more amped up to play,” Lingard said.
There’s still plenty of concern for other teams around the area.
Power outages remain a problem throughout the state, including in parts of the six-county Sentinel coverage area.
As of Monday morning, Orange County accounted for 20,897 power outages, just ahead of 18,136 in Volusia and 17,586 in Seminole. In Lake County, where schools are scheduled to reopen today, 12,044 customers were still without electricity.
Lake Nona coach Anthony Paradiso maintained a sense of perspective in a Monday email to the Sentinel, stating that a handful of players were still without power and that some assistant coaches had been displaced due to storm damage.
“We will return to practice [Monday] but are understanding that recovering from such an event is bigger than any football game,” Paradiso wrote. “However, I’m sure there are kids and coaches happy to have something to keep them busy and their minds off of the stress incurred from the hurricane.”
While most area teams return to the field Friday, some the majority of programs have an eye on returning to the field Friday, others were set to play Monday through Thursday in makeup games.
Jones and Oak Ridge are among teams planning to play two games over a span of four days. They’ll meet up at Jones today to finish a game postponed on Sept. 1 and then both play again on Friday.
“It’s kind of unprecedented,” Oak Ridge coach Clint Johnson said of the schedule upheaval. “I remember last year when we had Hurricane Matthew and we missed a game because of that [while he was coaching at Colonial] and we had to play [Orlando] University on a Monday. I kind of felt like Irma would be more like Matthew, but the winds with this one were unbelievable.”