California Schools Exploit Loopholes, Earn More Summer Football Practice Time

July 6, 2011 / Football
The Daily Journal (San Mateo, Calif.), Nathan Mollat

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=162415&title=Summer%E2%80%99s%20balancing%20act

Twenty-five years ago, a high school football program’s summer consisted of work in the weight room, 7-on-7 passing leagues for the skill players and hope from a coaching staff that players would come into fall camp in some sort of playing shape.

Over the years, however, football “activities” ramped up as coaches searched for an edge over the competition. It became a game of cat-and-mouse between schools, rivals and the rules that governed the amount of activity. The rules used to say only weight training and conditioning were allowed in the summer. No footballs allowed.

But one coach slowly morphed conditioning into practice. Another coach followed suit and soon every coach was exploiting loopholes.

In response, the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body of high school sports in the state, changed the rules a couple years ago. Now, from the second Saturday of June until July 31, high school football programs are allowed to practice as much — or as little — as they prefer. The trend for the better part of a decade was to cram as much practice time into the summer to be that much more prepared when the actual start of fall practice begins.

“I love it (summer practice),” said Hillsdale head coach Mike Parodi. “I think the most important time is spring (practice). Second most important time is summer.

“It’s a constant balancing act. I think we’re at a pretty good balance right now.”

This summer, the Knights will practice 33 times — which includes weight training, conditioning and football drills. Parodi believes the time spent in summer drills is invaluable for a program trying to build itself back into a power.

“To actually do football stuff during the summer, it gives them so much confidence,” Parodi said. “When school starts, they’ll have a pretty grasp on what they’re doing.”

Serra coach Patrick Walsh welcomes the new state rules governing football. Unlike nearly every other sport that has opportunities to play outside the high school season, football is only actually played for roughly three months. In the old days, that meant kids didn’t pick up a football or throw a block until the following year. Weight lifting and conditioning is not the fun part of football. Playing the game is. So to get his kids out on the field, practicing real football situations, is of tremendous help. Not so much for the team, but for the individual players. They are out there having fun.

“People don’t really understand you can play our game without beating the hell out of each other,” Walsh said. “In my opinion, kids quit football more often to focus on [other sports] that are more fun because the rules allow them to play those sports.”

Walsh said the West Catholic Athletic League does have some rules in place to limit the amount of time spent practicing during the summer. Walsh said the WCAL essentially allows 30 hours of practice, but any time spent doing football activities is a benefit to the program.

“I think there is a happy medium that we all need to hit as coaches,” Walsh said. “Doing nothing is unacceptable, but you don’t want to be peaking (in August). I think every coach has to sit down and decide what’s too little.”

Aragon coach Steve Sell also believes there has to be an equilibrium between doing too much and not doing enough.

“It’s such a balancing act,” Sell said. “You can’t do what you did in the 1990s — do a couple of passing leagues and tell kids to stay in shape. [That’s] not enough to be competitive.”

If it were up to Sell, however, he would just as soon do away with summer practice. As he’s gotten older, he realizes there is more to life than just football.

“I love my football kids, but I love my own kids even more,” Sell said.

Sell and Walsh are both in a growing coaches’ camp that would prefer to see less emphasis on practice during the summer. Not coincidentally, both are fathers who would like to spend more time with their kids and families.

In Walsh’s case, some of his desire to take the foot off the throttle is based on the returns. He said when he played at De La Salle, no one would dare take a day off in the summer. It hasn’t changed much but, while the Spartans may train for weeks more than Serra, how do you explain the Padres losing to the Spartans by just a point, 29-28, in 2008?

“I’ve been on the other side of that also, where the score is 40 to nothing at halftime,” Walsh said.

Sell is a believer in having the horses necessary to be good. No matter how great a coaching staff if, it can’t make up for a lack of size or ability of the players themselves. Not coincidentally, when Aragon had some of its best players over the last decade, the Dons were one of the top programs around. This year, they’ll play in the Ocean Division as those kind of football players just don’t come to Aragon any more.

“(Former Oak Grove coach) Ed Bullard told me he took six weeks off in the summer and they had quite a bit of success,” Sell said. “If [programs] go for a few quality weeks early, it would be good.

“In a perfect scenario, you would have 100 percent (player) participation during the summer — second Saturday of June to the second week of July — then just shut it down. (Have) a good three weeks of camp where you get everything in and then shut it down.”

Walsh said there are basically 11 weeks of summer and, while the Padres will be training in some capacity or another throughout the summer, there are two weeks that everybody in the program takes off.

Walsh has come around to the idea that busting tail in the summer does not pay off in the fall — or late in the season. He wants his team peaking for the postseason, not for the first three non-league games of the season.

“In our league, we have seven (league) games we can lose. We have to win in November,” Walsh said. “You have to peak in October, November, or you’re season is over in October.”

Sell is more pragmatic in his thinking. While one coach might blame an early-season loss on not preparing enough in the summer, Sell believes since kids play the game, they make mistakes — regardless of how much time they spend practicing.

“I think coaches think it (summer practice) makes a bigger difference than it really does. There is a lot of error in the analysis,” Sell said. “What has to happen, honestly, is (for coaches to) quit looking at their neighbors … and trying to keep up with the Joneses. If my neighbor is putting in 40 hours of week (during the summer), so be it. That’s not where I am.

“I know that by putting myself first, I’m putting the program first. If I burn out, it’s not good for anybody.”


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