Football Camp Tuesday

Football Practices
Monmouth-Roseville & Macomb
8/17/10

Nearly a week into high school football practices, teams are beginning to get a little more comfortable than where they were in the summer. Still, 10 days remain until kickoff 2010 arrives.

My travels took me to Sunnylane Field in Monmouth and Macomb High School to take in a little bit of practice from these West Central Conference foes. In addition, I had conversations today with the head coaches at Abingdon (Ricky Quinn) and Havana (Chad Heffren). I also talked soccer with Monmouth-Roseville's Aaron Sikorski. His team won a regional championship in 2009 in the program's third year of varsity soccer.

Shortly after 11:00 this morning, as I was preparing my noon sportscast and readying my trip out to catch the last phase of Titans football practice, Tom Petersen walked into the studio. He asked me about Titans practice, and I mentioned I was heading in that direction shortly. Tom will be handling the play-by-play duties for Titans football this fall. The games will be on either AM 1330 WRAM or Sunny 97.7 WMOI, switching back and forth with the United Red Storm.

Tom and I headed out to Sunnylane Field in a light rain. It felt like a fall day, something you would be feeling at the end of September, not days after heat indexes of 110+. Surely, it was a pleasant day for the kids in uniform. We caught the tail end of some drills, before the Titans broke for other drills.

I spoke with coach Curt Crum briefly, and he brought over a couple of Titans players to be interviewed, quarterback Drew Cole and linebacker Tanner Tate. You can view these interviews at www.ihssn.net.

With my house being shown at 5:00, I was looking for a practice to hit in the afternoon. Macomb football was going until 8:30. I decided to head back home to make a quick walk-through before the realtor brought the potential buyers in. Lets keep our fingers crossed, as I am getting nervous at the miles I could be putting on my vehicle this winter if I had to make the extra hour drive.

Heading out to Macomb High School, I waited out the persistent rainfall. Between 7:00 and 7:30, it let up, and eventually quit. The Bombers were going over some defenses after a short scrimmage (it was broken up by rain), in preparation for their week one opponent, West Hancock.

As the end of practice sprints began, coach Kelly Sears hollered (that's a Sears-ism) at one of his players not participating in the workouts. Knowing Sears like I do, I was suspicious. The player is Tevin Thurman, and he jogged over to where I was watching over practice. In general terms, he said; "You better not be from Quincy Notre Dame." Laughing, Sears yelled out, "What did he say?" I just laughed.

During the sprints, a Molly Hatchet reference was made by coach Sears. A couple players were, "Flirting with Disaster," coming dangerously close to their targeted time. After the sprints, I spoke with quarterback Seth Wickert. We talked about the new offense that offensive coordinator Max Kreps is installing. I also talked with lineman Jes Raby, and the expectations on this year's team and his senior year.

We headed off to the locker room and coaches office. Sears, along with assistants Kreps, Joe Westen, and Max Ford talked over some things following the days practice. Dan Rouse was also in the building. There was a total of 60 kids at practice today, and should be near 65 kids in the program. Sears says this is the highest total since about 1998.

Speaking of 1998, I stuck around for about 30 minutes and chatted with Sears and Rouse. We talked about that 1998 Bombers season, in which they reached the Class 3A semifinals. They began the season ranked 4th in the state and lost their first three games. Those three squads finished the regular season (26-1). They had Aledo (Class 2A state champions), Rockridge (Class 2A state runners-up), Canton (semifinalist), and Keokuk (undefeated regular season) all on their schedule.

Sears is pretty excited about the numbers and work ethic on this Macomb team.