Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
Rabbit hunters have an adage, “don’t eat one taken in a month that doesn’t have an ‘R’ in it.”
The opposite is true for football teams. “Championships are won in months that don’t contain an R.”
That means the off-season, the summer months for football and basketball, but year-round for far too many sports. There is no off-season for soccer or volleyball players. Many elementary-age wrestlers attend so many tournaments that, by the time they’re 13 or 14, they’re disgusted with the sport and refuse to continue.
There is a message in finding a balance between becoming proficient at a specific sport, or becoming so myopic that everything else in life loses its importance.
The off-season is a time to compete in another sport; it makes you a much more rounded individual.
If your son is a football player, sure, lifting weights is important, but augmenting his skills on the track, the mat, the diamond, or the basketball court is just as effective at developing his skill set as a player.
If your daughter is a volleyball player, she’ll improve much more by running the 400-meter dash, or playing basketball through the winter, than she will in playing endless games in non-school tournament settings.
As a basketball coach, I grew to enjoy the games we played at camps or just get-togethers at rival gyms more than the regular season.
It was just me and the boys. Meddling parents didn’t care because, in their minds, the games were the only thing that mattered, not the work put in during the week prior or in the summer.
There were no overzealous administrators present either, the kind that does everything in their power to usurp successful programs so the “tail doesn’t wag the dog.”
Football camps in the old days used to involve the entire team gathering together at a camp a long way from home. One of my favorite stories of the old days came from the Lusk Tigers way back in the late 50s to the early 60s.
The Tigers traveled to Ft. Robinson, Nebraska, during late June to practice and play games against schools from South Dakota and Western Nebraska.
The kids stayed in the barracks once used by the US 7th Cavalry back in the 1870s.
Lusk was a much bigger school in those days. The Tigers now have an enrollment of only about 90 kids, but six decades ago, the high school had 350 students.
The decline matches the loss of population in the town. Lusk is the only Wyoming community to have lost population in every census since 1900, a trend that continues as the Tigers have done the unthinkable: moving to Class 1-A after a storied tradition in Class A (modern 3-A) and decades in Class B (their present Class 2-A alignment).
During those early years, a former Lusk coach took a position at the University of Wyoming as a freshman football coach.
Before the modern era, freshmen could not play varsity football at Division I schools.
The Tigers anticipated a good team that Fall, expecting to roll over their competition in the Absaroka Conference. Teams from Chadron, Gering, and Alliance at camp weren’t expected to give them much competition either.
Someone suggested they scrimmage the University of Wyoming freshmen at camp, and the former Tiger coach brought up about 15 players.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but there is a huge difference in skill, speed, and strength between a recruited class of 19-year-old Division I freshmen and the best high school team you can imagine.
It didn’t go well for the Tigers. There were so many injured kids that they canceled the game in the third period.
Concussions were no doubt a prominent feature of this lesson in competition, but in those days, it was just “getting your bell rung,” not the serious medical condition we consider it today.
It was the first and last time the Tigers and Cowboys met on the gridiron.
Imagine the response today if something like this ill-advised scrimmage took place. The lines of personal injury attorneys would stretch for hundreds of miles in all directions.
High school players routinely scrimmage with college athletes during summer visits in basketball and volleyball. Volleyball is a non-contact sport, while basketball is categorized as a contact one, but not a collision sport like football.
A few schools compete well year after year in nearly every sport. You’ll find the boys and girls at the gym, in the weight room, or running stairs at the stadium all summer. They attend a few camps, and in the case of the football team, they load hay bales, shovel dirt, or build fence all summer long. If you’re reminded of Jeff Mowry’s Sheridan Broncs, well…When will they ever lose a game?
Summer camps in basketball can dominate a student’s life if a coach gets overzealous. Some Class 4-A schools in the eastern areas of the state play upwards of 60 games in the off-season. That’s far too many. The kids can’t hold a job, play baseball or softball, and aren’t allowed to attend football, track, or soccer camps because of the stringent basketball schedule.
This process ruins overall athletics in deference to one winter sport. It’s not a good idea.
The camp I enjoyed the best lasted four days in 100+ degree Grand Junction, Colorado at Mesa State College.
We played three games a day. The kids stayed in the dorms, ate in the cafeteria, and got a taste of college life, a taste many would have never experienced without basketball.
One afternoon, we played in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. There was a small school and a big school division every summer. I always enrolled Shoshoni in the big school division.
Steamboat had at least eight times our enrollment, but I didn’t care. What I cared about was the Wranglers getting killed on the boards when we played Steamboat Springs. We were a good rebounding team, but didn’t get very many against Steamboat.
I chewed the boys pretty hard about blocking out. We came from behind to win by five points.
Later that day at dinner, as we lined up in the cafeteria, I noticed a group of very tall kids in line ahead of us. There were four boys, 6-8 or taller.
I said to my players, “Wow, look at the size of those guys.”
In unison, three of the seniors said to me, “Are you kidding, coach? That’s Steamboat, we played them this afternoon.”
Taken aback, I said, “Well, I guess that explains why you guys rebounded like crap. They didn’t look that big from the bench.”
The boys shook their heads and got back in line.
Summer; it’s when championships are won.