By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

Monday was the first day of fall football practice, but, as usual, there was nothing fall-like about Central Florida in early August.

The heat and humidity was there, only occasionally tempered by a passing cloud.

But, so were the football players, their coaches and the team managers as the budding football season got under way.

All did not go smoothly, of course.

Some players muffed assignments and some withered under the searing heat.

“Get off my football field!” Gateway High Coach Marlin Roberts yelled at one of his players who could not keep up during a drill Monday.

Panthers’ running back Zach Smith implored his teammates to pick it up during a break.

“This is not who we are. This is not the team that played in the spring,” he said.

Roberts later stepped back and put it in perspective.

“It’s the first day,” he said. “All kinds of crazy things happen.”

With new conditioning rules recently mandated by the Florida High School Athletic Association, there isn’t a lot that football coaches and trainers can do to improve a player’s skill set right away.

This year, two-a-day practices are banned until the second week. Players can be on the field for a maximum of three and a half hours per day, counting mandatory water breaks every 25 minutes.

Plus, players must have access to water at all times.

Osceola High trainer Megan McKenna said players who do not keep up with their workouts over the summer pay a price when the practices begin.

“These rules are in place mainly for the schools who don’t have trainers on staff,” she said. “Our guys did a good job of coming in over the summer, so we’re in pretty good shape. We haven’t had any problems at all.”

Today is the first day that contact drills can begin.

Gateway High Athletic Director George Sullivan was at the Panthers’ practice field Monday.

He called the first three days of football practice, when teams don’t wear pads or hit, “conditioning drills.”

“That’s really all it is. Football practice begins (today),” he said.

Sullivan, a former football assistant coach at Osceola High, said the difference between football practice today and the way it was when he coached, in the 1970s and 80s, is dramatic.

“You can’t even do two-a-days,” he said. “It’s not even close to the way it was. But, that’s the way it has to be, I guess.”

The first day of practice generally draws optimistic views from the players.

Gateway junior linebacker Jaiquan Owens said the Panthers can make a first-ever appearance in the playoffs, providing that they do the work necessary to become  champions.

“You have to have the intensity, do the hard work it takes to be in the playoffs,” he said. “Last year, they didn’t play hard for four quarters. That was the problem.”

Zach Smith told his teammates that they had to pick up the pace and act like a team destined to reach the playoffs.

“Everyone out here, me too, we have to reach down and do better,” he said. “We have talent, but everyone has talent. We have to work harder, listen to our coaches, if we want to make the playoffs.”

Later, Smith, a senior, said he feels an obligation to be a leader this season, and to get the Panthers into the playoffs.

“I want to see us working until we drop,” he said. “And, we’ll get it turned around, me and the other leaders on this team. I have no doubt in my mind. Playoffs. That’s our goal. I say it every day.”

At Osceola High, a team that makes playoff trips with almost mundane regularity (five years in a row, 12 out of the past 14 years), the players not only expect to reach the playoffs, but to continue playing until it really does feel like fall, in December.

“State champion, 15-0,” senior guard Josh Phelps said of the Kowboys’ team goals.

Wishful thinking?

Maybe not. There may be as many as six or seven Division I-level players on the Kowboys roster, and a lot of others with the ability to play at the college level.

Phelps and most of his teammates spent long hours in the weightroom this summer to make that happen.

“Three hours a day, three days a week,” Phelps said. “You’ve got to fight through the injuries. You can’t let the tiniest thing take your eye off of your goal.”

Running back Stafon McCray, one of those Kowboys’ D-I talents and last year’s county rushing leader, echoed Phelps’ remarks about OHS making a bid for a Class 7A championship.

“That’s the goal,” he said.

And, for anyone who believes that if a team can stop McCray, it can beat the Kowboys, the running back said, guess again.

“Teams that key on one player are making a big mistake,” he said. “They’re gonna see a lot of different stuff. Neat stuff.”

St. Cloud Coach Brad Lennox said his squad had a good day of work Monday, but then slumped a little Tuesday.

“The kids were excited, we had a great day Monday, but they were a little sluggish Tuesday,” he said. “It’s hard the second day when you aren’t in pads. But, so far, things are going great.”

Liberty, Harmony, and Poinciana are practicing during the afternoon and early evening.

Chargers Coach David Benson said he changes the practices on the days when the team can’t wear pads.

“We spend the first hour in the weight room, and then we get out on the field and do some drills and work on special teams,” he said.

Benson said he doesn’t consider the afternoon heat to be a problem.

“No, that’s the time we’re going to be on the field next week anyway, so they might as well get used to it,” Benson said.