As spring comes around, the varsity football team is preparing for its upcoming season.

Head coach Ross Bandiera organizes the team’s schedule. He said, “Right now we have football workouts on Sunday mornings, Tuesday mornings, and Thursday mornings. Coach Murphy (our linebacker coach and now strength and conditioning coach) is running us through those. On Sunday mornings, after football we are doing defensive meetings, and on Thursdays during fifth period, Coach M is holding offensive meetings.”

Bandiera holds these workouts to get the team physically ready for the upcoming season. He said, “A little conditioning, a little speed training, a little quickness training, a little explosiveness, and in the weight room we do some core lifting, so auxiliary lifts to get our bodies prepared for the upcoming season.”

These workouts started the holiday weekend of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Bandiera said, “We start again after spring break and end before Memorial Day, and that’s our spring session; and then, we have a summer session that starts basically after school is out until two-a-days start.”

Rising junior Lantz Reed, a receiver and cornerback, pushes himself to train even though he admits it’s physically challenging. He said, “It’s been good, but I did it last year as a sophomore. I gained weight and got stronger and it got me ready for varsity football, so I’m just trying to improve myself and have a better season than I did last year.”

Rising senior and team captain Kade Woods says not only is the team working out and lifting, but they are also mentally getting ready. He said, “After our season ended, we got a few weeks off and then got straight into work as well as opening the playbooks and studying our plays so we are prepared.”

Reed also does more outside of workouts. He said, “I’m trying to get bigger. Occasionally I’m running hills and it’s starting to get warmer, so I’m gonna start going to the field with my friends and do drills and run games and try to work on technique to get better.”

Woods and everyone else at workouts do a lot of running with weights on their backs. He said, “What that does is boost our acceleration. Once you take those weights off you move so much faster. We are also doing hops and single-leg stuff to build strength in our legs.”

While Coach Bandiera always wants the team to have a good record, he also wants to develop them as good young men. He said, “Off the field, I just want to have a good group of kids that have each other’s backs and understand that football is a lot more than just playing on Friday nights; but, it’s just about an experience that these kids could take with them for the rest of their lives and learn good discipline – just how to be a man.”

The varsity football team holds its first camp on Monday, May 29.