It’s here. It’s finally here.
After more than nine months of waiting, the weightlifting competitions, the linemen camps, those exotic 7-on-7 passing leagues and a bunch of other offseason garbage that included several players from the defending Class LL champion Greenwich football team (which was deftly covered by the Greenwich Citizen sports editor Scott Ferarri in this Aug. 7 story) its finally time to grab the water buckets, push out the tackling sleds, the orange cones and old tires (unless you’re one of those special-interest clods from the North Haven-based Environment and Human Health Inc. group attempting to abolish field turf) and hit the fields…
It’s football time.
Yes. The 2008 Connecticut High School football season officially gets underway Monday with the first day of conditioning camp. We’ve already sent our 2008 preseason prospectuses to nearly 50 coaches and have started to hit the fields to see who’s got what for the upcoming season.
As an aside: Did anybody catch the ESPN interview done with one of Shelton Little League coach Ed Szymansky’s older (non-Little League playing) sons? Though I didn’t, I heard it was beaut if you’re a football fan: the Szymanskys said they hadn’t been on vacation in years. So they asked young Szymansky where he’d like to be on vacation and he basically said: Can’t. I’ve got football practice on Monday.
“Football rules my life,” he said. (Hear that Jeff Roy?)
Again, this was second-hand information, but just priceless for us football lovers if its true.
Anyway, I was supposed to keep this short and rant-free. I was supposed to just trumpet the start of conditioning week and the beginning of yet another sure-to-be exciting football season. I got carried away.
Feel free to post your thoughts either here or on some of the other entries on this blog (especially on our Preseason Top 10 posting). We’ll be getting you videos and commentary real, real soon.
Until then,
SPB
Another aside: has anybody ever heard of a team actually losing a passing league? For as long as I’ve heard about these things, I’ve yet to hear that a team got its butt kicked in a passing league. It’s always, ‘Well, we won our passing league this year, so that’s good.’ Just once, I’d like to hear a coach or parent say, ‘Well, we got absolutely trounced in our passing league. Jimmy couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. And our senior receiving corps of Joe, Bob and Dan couldn’t catch a cold).
Just a thought.
In my opinion, the CIAC needs to really take a close look at all these off season leagues. There are too many of them, and they take up too much time. Don’t these kids ever get to kick back, enjoy their free time, and work out on their own.
And don’t give me the BS line that the these camps are all unofficial, and coaches cannot be there in any official capacity, so therefore the CIAC can’t do anything. Does anybody really believe that? These coaches are there every single night, making sure their players run the plays they are supposed to and you know, “coaching” them.
In the not too distant past, this was not the case. One sports season ended, another began, and the players did not need to worry about that sport until the season started up again. But now, a football program who doesn’t participate in off season camps would feel they are at a disadvanatge becuase of all those that do.
But if the CIAC banned them all, then the playing field would be leveled again.
And don’t tell me that this would hurt CT kids chances of going to college and playing because they are underdeveloped. First of all, these camps are jokes anyway that do not help. And second, the vast majority of CT kids go to low level DI schools (or worse) anyway. How much could it hurt them?
Astute thoughts, Rob. This isn’t just football, either.
How about fall basketball and baseball leagues? Or summer soccer.
All of these teams practically comprise the same players as their respective schools.
May we’re pointing our fingers in the wrong direction. Isn’t it the parents who ultimately make the decisions and pay for their kids to be in all the different sports programs? I don’t have a problem with kids playing one sport every season if he/she truly loves the sport. I do think that as parents we need to make sure at the younger levels our kids are playing different sports so they are developing different muscles.