FALL HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS SEASON KICKS-OFF
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » The date has been circled on calendars across New York State for months, some with a smile, some with a frown attached, but either way the 2018 Fall scholastic sports season kicked off across the Capital District with football taking center stage.
For Saratoga Springs High School football coach Terry Jones, the competition has already started Monday morning at the high school.
It’s a battle for time, more of it and it’s a battle he’s losing.
“It’s way too early,” Terry Jones said. “New York State does to fall sports any favors A. I’ve said that for years and years and years
“I mean this is three weeks before school starts, you know, there’s a lot of kids, I’m sure that would be more interested in playing if they didn’t have to give up three weeks of their summer.
“For some of these kids that’s three weeks of work and they need it. They need to work. They do no favors to fall sports. But you know New York is a basketball state. It always has been and so here we are.”
Jones isn’t shying away from practice time for his Blue Streaks he wants the state to join a standard that other states have created, longer regular season contest dates.
“We’re one of the few states in the country that doesn’t play high school football through Thanksgiving,” Jones said. “The only ones who play through Thanksgiving in New York State are the teams in the
state finals.
“You look around, states as close as Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, every high school is playing through Thanksgiving. It’s one of the reasons why most colleges neglect New York as much as they do because we don’t play a lot of football.”
All teams in New York State share the same calendar universal start date, but the Blue Streaks have been putting in their time in the off-season.
“We’ve had great numbers in our weight room, we’ve done off season drills, we’ve done seven-on-seven and we’ve run our clinics,” Jones said. “We’re staying away from the team camps right now.”
It hasn’t been a lack of numbers Jones said, it falls in line with reducing physical contact.
“I haven’t necessarily seen a true advantage one way or the other,” Jones said. “We’ve gone to team camps, we’ve had teams that have been very successful and vice versa
“For me right now is how much hitting do we do. At the team camps it seems like by Wednesday its full contact tackle football.”
He said the sport’s reputation is being hurt by the news coming out of the NFL regarding injury and lifetime complications within the sport.
“We kind of stay away from it and we feel there’s other things we can do,” Jones said. “Our clinics, seven-on- sevens they still help us and prepare us and don’t speed us into putting our kids in situations where we feel they’re not ready.”
The first few days of practice are for evaluation and installing offensive and defensive plays for the Blue Streaks.
“This is football, football’s a contact sport and we’re not in full pads until Saturday,” Jones said. ‘These first couple of days we’re just in helmets. I mean it’s not real football so things don’t really amp up until you start putting pads on.
“Someone can look great in seven-on-seven drills, but as soon as you bring contact into it they may look completely different.”