Olivia Hayes
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Rock Bridge High School football team is switching up its practice routine for the summer heat.
Matt Perkins, Rock Bridge football’s head coach, said the team’s practice schedule during the school year is usually two hours after school, starting around 4:15 or 4:30 p.m. However, with Mother Nature turning up the temperatures in the summer months, the team has had to make some adjustments, switching to morning practices.
ABC 17 sat in on the team’s Thursday morning practice, starting at 6:45 a.m. Perkins also emphasized the importance of hydration for his athletes, along with getting an early start, to ensure safety is a top priority.
“We’ve got multiple water stations throughout practice, so … offense is down on this end, the defense is down on the other end,” Perkins said. “Each group has two smaller coolers, and then we have a giant cooler in the middle full of water. Our managers do a really good job making sure those are filled up.”
Anabelle Faith, an incoming junior at Rock Bridge High School and one of the team’s managers, said the students have to arrive at the school around 6:30 a.m. to fill the water coolers that the team uses.
“It kind of just depends on the heat because there’s rainy days and they don’t drink a lot of water, but on like an average day, they’ll probably finish all of them,” Faith said.
Perkins also explained the team’s protocol when handling potential heat-related sickness, but said as a coaching staff, they try and keep a close eye on things to avoid the possibility.
“We sit them out, put them in the shade, give him a ice pack, put it on their neck, put it on their wrists or their arm. We have ice, like tubs, and that are also set up, and so we can dunk a kid if we need to, and all of those things,” Perkins said.
For Thursday’s practice, Perkins said coaches had a couple of athletes they were watching closely.
“One of them is wearing a shoulder harness, and so he’s got a little bit of extra, you know, thickness on what he’s wearing,” Perkins said. “Instead of being in like an eight-play environment with, you know, your group period, maybe that kid’s on a four-play rotation. Just getting that guy off the field a little bit quicker.”
Evan Williams, a senior on the Rock Bridge Football team, said he takes steps the night before practice and the morning of to combat the impacts of the summer heat.
“The night before, you got to get sleep, obviously. I wake up, drink a lot of water. You know, get my body ready for practice,” Williams said. “Of course, I have some sort of breakfast, eggs. I guess that makes me, I guess feel the best.”
He also said fueling his body after practice is important in his routine.
Williams feels that the attention to detail of the Rock Bridge coaching staff promotes a healthy atmosphere for him and the other athletes.
“I feel like with all the water we have here, I feel like it’s a safe space and helps you be a better athlete by not being dehydrated,” Williams said.
Becky Spicer, Williams’ mom, credits the “M.O.B. mentality”, an idea encouraged by the Rock Bridge coaches. Spicer says it’s made her son and his team step up to the plate on and off the field.
“As a parent, it took me a little time to understand what that was. I do know now that that is maximum effort, ownership and brotherhood. But these boys, it has become who they are and they have fully bought into that,” Spicer said.
She said on days like Thursday, where the temperature plays a major role in player performance, it’s even more important for the team to stick together.
“When they’re out here and it’s 110 degrees and they’re padded up and with helmets on, part of that discomfort is preparing them for being successful. And I think that they understand that and they own that,” Spicer said.
As a parent who has put multiple kids through Rock Bridge Athletics, Spicer says she has seen the staff transform over the last few years.
“I have given my trust fully to this program, and what I have seen just in the last couple of years has been impressive. We have an incredible athletic training staf,f and if our coaches are driving these protocols, I think they’re doing all the right things,” Spicer said.
The Bruins will head to their second football camp of the summer on Tuesday in Branson as their first game of the season nears.
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