Be prepared. Be very prepared. Make no doubt about it, if you
want to play football at San Benito High School, coming to practice
on Aug. 6 out of shape isn’t even an option, especially with so
many options that are provided to the players.
Editor’s note: Preparing for Prep Sports is a series highlighting the athletes of the fall season, and what they do to prepare for the upcoming season in their respective sport. Today, the final part of the series, football.
Hollister – Be prepared. Be very prepared.
Make no doubt about it, if you want to play football at San Benito High School, coming to practice on Aug. 6 out of shape isn’t even an option, especially with so many options that are provided to the players.
SBHS Head Coach Chris Cameron says the players hit the weight room year-round, three to four days a week during the season, four days a week in the off-season. Players can even attend the zero-period weight training session four times a week, which runs from 7:20 to 8:30am, ending before the 8:50am bell for first classes.
“The better your physical condition the less chance you have of getting hurt, the better chance you have of being able to compete, and the better your ability to focus on each task,” Cameron said. “If you’re out of shape, you have a better chance of getting hurt, you’re not going to be able to compete as well, and mentally, when your body gets tired, it starts to dull your mind. And now you’re not even able to pay attention to detail and you won’t execute as well.”
In the summer, Cameron installs a five-week program almost immediately after school is out. With the players lifting four days a week, Cameron says the squad is out competing hard in football-suited drills five days a week, with two days out of the week specifically geared toward running.
Or, as Cameron said of those two days, “… we run, and we run, and we run, and then we run again, and we keep running …”
From the end of the five-week summer program to the beginning of fall practices on Aug. 6, the players have 24 days off. But at the end of the summer program, Cameron issues a running schedule to the players, breaking down what they need to do every day in order to pass the workout tests on the first day of practice, or, as the team calls it, condition testing day.
“If you’ve been working out and doing what you’re supposed to be doing, it’s easy,” Cameron said. “If they followed the running program, and if they were there for the summer and ran, and they followed what I wrote down in the letter, Aug. 6 is a cruise.
“You find out real quick who followed the running program and who didn’t.”
The players have three-and-a-half weeks where they’re on their own, though.
No coaches. No coordinators. No fans. Just a piece of paper telling them what to do.
Junior Mitchell Cook, who plays strong safety and running back, and junior wide receiver Felix Cortez, say those weeks leading up to Aug. 6 are spent with teammates out on the field completing running drills.
“If you’re not in shape for football, you get tired. And when you’re tired, you can’t think. And when you can’t think, you can’t make the calls, and you can’t play both aspects of the game – the mental and the physical part,” Cook said. “A big part is staying in physical shape, but not just staying in shape, but getting faster and stronger.”
Cortez said in that time off, the players just work out and condition. The players are tested on 100-, 50-, 30-, 20- and 10-yard sprints, including two 300-yard shuttle runs, among other tests.
“You get with friends and do it. It makes it a lot easier,” Cook said. The junior ball carrier said Cameron’s schedule involved four days of running and three days of lifting. In the weight room, the players do squats, bench, power cleaning, dead lift, lunges, or, pretty much everything they work on while in season.
For the most part, the year-round training regiment makes the transfer to fall practices seamless.
Come Aug. 6, though, players, broken down by position, are expected to meet the tests in an allotted amount of time. For example, linemen run 100 yards in 14 seconds or better.
If not, they go again.
Over the past two years, Cameron said the players have performed “decently” on conditioning day, but added that the haves and the have-nots are separated real fast on Aug. 6.
“If you come in out of shape, you’re showing everyone else that it’s not that important to you,” Cameron said. “I’m not pulling any punches. What’s in the letter is what we do. No more. No less.”
