Football players will begin practice for new season on Monday

Just about, if not all, high school football coaches and players have been waiting for Aug. 11 to arrive — which it will on Monday, the first day of organized practice for this upcoming 2025 season. “We’re always ready to get football season kicked off again,” Sallisaw football coach Brandon Tyler said. “It’s been a fast summer. It was a good summer for our kids. Looking at our summer attendance, we had a 91-percent attendance rate out of 83 kids. That was really good this summer. We did our testing this week, and our numbers were way up on all our bench (press lifting), squat (lifting) and power things. I’m very pleased with where our kids are strength wise, then our speed has gotten better. The kids have worked real hard all summer. I know they’re anticipating the start of the season just as we (coaches) are. We’re looking forward to Monday. We’ll go about 2.5 hours.”

“The kids are biting at the nails to get out there and start practice,” Muldrow coach Logan Coatney said. “The summer workouts can become monotonous a little bit and you go through the motions day to day.”

“We’re ready,” Roland coach Greg Wise said. “It’s been a long summer. It becomes monotonous at a certain point of the summer. It’s been 2.5 months of the same thing. We’re ready to get into some football. We’ve been in the weight room all summer. We’ve been getting our sprints in. We’ve been getting all those things done. We’re just ready to move on to football. They’re ready to get after it. They’ve told me so. When we start practice Monday, I fully expect that those guys are going to be tuned in and be ready. They’re going to be listening. They’re going to want to learn. I fully expect that from them. I’m ready to see what they’re going to do.” “I think everybody is ready to get started,” Central coach Jeremy Thompson said. “We’ll come in during the mornings and do a little bit of conditioning, then hit the field in the evenings. When you get past June and get into July, you feel like you’re ready for it (football) to go ahead and start. Our workouts have been good. Summer (Pride) was good. The kids have worked extremely hard. They’re ready to get the football out and play.”

“We’re ready to go,” Gore coach Brandon Ellis said. “We had coaches meetings all this week, finalizing stuff for next week. We’re ready to get back in it (football). We’re ready for a routine. The kids are excited. They’ve worked hard all summer. These guys who are going to be seniors, it’s all new to them because they’re going to be taking on a leadership role. They’re ready to make it their own.”

“They’re a lot more anxious than they were last year,” Gans coach Gary Hixon said. “I’ve had kids message me on our (Gans Public Schools) app and say, ‘What time is practice today?’ I tell them, ‘We’re practicing on Monday the 11th.’ Last year, we were sitting here trying to get to know these kids. They didn’t know what to expect from us, and we (coaches) didn’t know what to expect from them. This year, we got a chance to know a lot about each other. Now, they’re anxious (for practice to start). We’ve got a lot of young kids. They’re just super anxious and ready to go.”

“The coaches are probably a bit more excited than the kids,” Webbers Falls coach Trent Holt said. “The kids are going to be the ones really working. This last week, we’ve been doing some running, just some conditioning type stuff. We’ve had a pretty good turnout. We’re pretty excited. It seems like the kids are ready to get going.”

For the Vian Wolverines, who made the Class 2A, Division II State Championship Game and lost to Davis, Aug. 11 couldn’t get here fast enough.

“We’ve got a lot of seniors that are back,” Vian coach Gary Willis said. “We had a great summer in the weight room and in conditioning. They’re ready to go I think. The turf (at St. John Stadium) is still not done, so we’ll be practicing out at the youth fields probably. It’s different, but we’ll take it.”

In the 1980s and further back, what we know as “Summer Pride” was truly not in existence, where football teams basically have workouts for two months — separated by “Dead Week” near the end of June into early July. All the local coaches said having a “Summer Pride” is huge in trying to get their players to be the best they can be.

“When I was in school, there was no Summer Pride,” said Tyler, whose Black Diamonds will begin practice at 6:30 p.m. Monday. “Everybody just lifted and did what they wanted to, but back then kids were in the hay fields working. The times have changed a lot. Now, we’re up here (working out during June and July). I’m just proud of their effort with them showing up and working hard all summer long. We’re very blessed here at Sallisaw to lift here all year round. Our kids will lift three or four days a week during the season. Obviously our offseason program is really good. That’s another bonus that we have that we’re blessed with and bring our kids in and lift first hour. Things are set up good for us to get stronger and faster. Our kids have been working their tails off. I’m very proud of them right now. I’m proud of our coaching staff. They spend a lot of time up here during the summer away from their families. I’m very pleased with them. We have a great staff right now. It’s fun to come to work every day with these guys.”

“We had a great summer,” said Coatney, whose Bulldogs will have their first practice at 2 p.m. Monday unless circumstances change that. “We had a great group of kids showing up on a daily basis. Once (Monday) gets here, our kids will be full tilt and ready to rock and roll. There’s not a high school kid out there who thinks they can take 2.5 months off and decide to come back out and be at full strength. We take great pride in doing our workouts during the summer, get our kids acclimated to the heat, and understanding what their bodies can do and can’t do. That, in turn, allows us (coaches) to make sure our student athletes are healthy as we start two-adays.”

“We had a good core group,” said Wise, whose Rangers will start practice at 3 p.m. Monday. “Most of our kids we had showing up averaged about 90 to 95 percent attendance rate all summer. I can’t complain about it. I’m thankful for them. Unlike last year when we got thrown into it when I was hired last July, it’s a lot different now. Just being able to be with them all summer, it’s a tremendous help to be able to do that instead of coming in basically a month before the season starts.”

“It keeps the kids in shape,” said Thompson, whose Tigers will begin their first practice of the season at 7 p.m. Monday. “Over the summer, you want to get stronger and faster. Throughout the month of June, there’s 7-on-7s. It’s one of those things where you know you’re prepping yourself to be the best you can whenever you get started (with football) and the official starting date. There comes a point in there where everybody is getting really anxious to get started.”

“Summer is huge now,” said Willis, whose Wolverines will have their first practice at 3 p.m. Monday if the heat cooperates — if not, at 6 a.m. “Around Memorial Day, we took three days off. Then, we got into the weight room. We took the ‘Dead Week’ off. These guys had about a week and a half off all summer. They’ve been getting up at 6:30 a.m. and getting after it. It’s done a lot of them a lot of good — you can physically see the difference. It (Summer Pride) is very important.”

“We feel like where we are right now, we’re ahead of the curve because we do (summer) camps, spring ball and passing leagues,” said Ellis, whose Pirates will have practice No. 1 from 7-9 p.m. Monday. “We’re around our kids all summer and around them more in this day of coaching than we ever have been. It (summer) is like a mini vacation compared to back in the day where it was a long (summer) vacation. Work ethic and team camaraderie is there. What makes everything gel together is actually when school starts because everybody is around everybody all the time (during Summer Pride), then we all get back into that routine.”

“We had, at times, more amount of kids at Summer Pride this year,” said Hixon, whose Grizzlies will start practice at 2:303 p.m. Monday. “It was very productive. They’re all a lot of young kids who did this. They’ve put in a lot of effort and work. I’m anxious to see how well all the work they’ve put in is going to transform onto the football field (for the 2025 season). We even went to a team camp this year for the first time in a long time. They’ve bought in, and they’ve had a good time (this summer). They’re anxious. I hope (Summer Pride workouts progress) carries over (into the 2025 season).”

“I was fairly pleased (with Summer Pride) for the ones who made it,” said Holt, whose Warriors will commence practice at 6-7 p.m. Monday, at least to this point. “For the ones who have been up here, I can tell a difference. Once we start (practice), they’ll be glad they took the time to do it (Summer Pride). We tell them that all the time. ‘You need to do stuff. Practice won’t be as hard (if you do).’”