Loading ...
While most students spend the summer relaxing and traveling, many WHHS sports teams use this time to get ready for the season. This includes the varsity football team. With summer practices four days a week ranging from two to three hours, the team does not get much free time.
“I think it’s important to practice as much as we do because we have a pretty small team, so we’ve got to be pretty well prepared to win games and not get blown out every game,” said varsity football player Mark Bronson, ‘25.
Most recently, to help them prepare for the season, the team had a 12-hour practice that went from 11:30 p.m. to 11:30 a.m.
“I thought it was crazy,” said Bronson.“A 12-hour practice that started at 12 p.m., I didn’t think it was real.”
The practice dubbed the ‘Eagle Rise And Grind,’ created by Coach Myles, the new head football coach, was composed of a long list of different workouts, meetings with different sections of the team and team bonding activities.
“It was pretty good. Practicing as the sun was coming up was pretty cool, and then we went bowling after, that was pretty fun too, until people started falling asleep,” Bronson said.
Along with the football team, the WHHS cheer team used the summer to help get in shape for the season. Though the cheer season doesn’t start until mid-
August, the team starts practices in late May and continues throughout the summer two days a week for two hours.
“A lot of people don’t know that we go to UCA Camp, which is in the summer,” freshman cheer coach Tre’sha Young said.“It teaches you the proper techniques because a lot of times we only have two people who have ever cheered before.”
At UCA Camp, the team spent three days overnight at Miami University where their skills were put to the test by having to learn new routines and cheers each day. Then, they were evaluated on the final day. Despite their struggles, the team was able to pull through and bring home a victory for WHHS.
“I think it taught them to believe more in than themselves and realize that they can take more than they thought,” Young said. “It’s pretty challenging. You learn a lot of material within a span of four days. And then on the last day, you’re performing it as if you knew it your whole life.”
Not only did this experience improve their skills as cheerleaders, but it also helped bring them closer together and learn to rely on each other.
“It’s the same thing as a football team,” Young said. “They can’t win or work or do well together if they don’t know each other and know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and bond with each other.”
