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Football begins to trickle back
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| Pasadena quarterback Damon Ojeda (front) was among the Eagles who participated in a Friday practice, a workout that started the team down the road towards finally playing football again. Pasadena is slated to play Pearland on the road next Saturday afternoon at 2. |
By ROBERT AVERY
Like the normalcy of routine life before the arrival of Hurricane Ike, high school football began to trickle back in town Friday.
Pasadena, Memorial, Sam Rayburn and South Houston all took their first post-Ike steps in the last 48 hours, venturing forth with practices, albeit without a full compliment of players.
PASADENA
While their school across the street remained without power, the Eagles began their preparation for area-ranked Pearland with 24 overall players, 15 of them on the varsity roster.
That mattered little to Jeff Ganske, Pasadena’s new head coach. For the first time in nearly a week he could forget about damage to his home caused by Hurricane Ike.
“It’s good to be back playing football,” Ganske said.
Prior to some conditioning work, Ganske and other coaches made it pretty crystal clear to those in attendance that they better get on their cell phones or whatever means and contact those who weren’t at Friday’s practice. The message: The Eagles need all hands on deck for a 2 p.m. Monday practice. But that may be easier said than done since some players are likely out of town to escape homes still without power or homes damaged by the hurricane.
Despite the struggles of the area to rebound from the deadly storm, the coaching staff was attempting to sink in the message that the district race will be held one way or another and that it was just days away.
Along those lines, Ganske announced that their district opener with the Oilers has been moved from Friday night to Saturday afternoon at 2 at Pearland.
“Everything is tentative. You still don’t know when you’re going to get your kids back,” Pasadena assistant coach Mike Ellisor said. “It could work out where we don’t get our kids back till Thursday or Friday. You can’t get ready for that game on Saturday. With that in mind, they’ve given us the OK to begin practice. It’s something we’re going to have to play by ear because they’ve been off for a week. You gotta get them back in some kind of shape. You don’t want to go out there and get them injured.”
Eagles quarterback Damon Ojeda was among the varsity players trying to get their thoughts trained again on Xs and Os of the game. It’s his legs that have made the team’s signal-caller the greatest threat so far. He’s averaging 10.1 yards per carry after rushing for 61 yards on just six carries.
MEMORIAL
At Memorial, the Mavericks had almost 40 players participating in Friday’s practice. Because their first district game is at the moment slated to be played two days earlier than Pasadena, a sense of urgency was more prevalent.
“This whole week we had off we were supposed to come up here and lift (weights),” Mavs quarterback Tate Gresham said.
The Mavericks’ last official practice was on Sept. 10 so the unknown factor will be how well Memorial will be able to not only pick up where it left off but will the Mavs be in condition that will carry them for 48 minutes of not just a game, but a 22-5A game?
“These two days have been like knocking the rust off,” offensive lineman Jacob Socie said. “I think once we put the pads on we’ll pick up where we left off.”
“I think football’s kind of getting us back in the schedule like with school,” Gresham said. “It’s kind of easier because we don’t have to worry about school.”
The full gear wasn’t part of Friday’s scene at either Pasadena or Memorial. It was as if the clock had been turned back to August and those four heat-acclimated days teams must go through before slipping on the pads.
SAM RAYBURN
Sam Rayburn’s game this week with La Porte has tentatively been moved to Saturday afternoon at 2 in La Porte.
The Texans worked out Saturday morning with a healthy dose of players. The focus was seeing how much had been retained since the last practice.
“Yesterday (Friday) and today, we just went into our own offense versus our own defense and got in some conditioning. The spirits are pretty good,” Rayburn head coach Chris Bussey said.
Bussey’s staff also made it a point to see where everyone stood as far as circumstances were concerned at home. A large number of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were available to the players after practice.
But for the coaching staff, it’s been all about preparing and nothing about playing for the last two frustrating weeks.
“It’s been a wild ride. We went from preparing for Baytown Sterling and then when that game got cancelled I had already planned a game during our off week versus Manvel. Then we started preparing for Manvel and then that game got cancelled. Now we’re preparing for La Porte. It feels like we’ve played three games and we haven’t played any yet,” Bussey said.
SOUTH HOUSTON
South Houston’s district opener at Newcomb Field has tentatively been set for Friday afternoon at 4 against Deer Park. Power concerns at PISD’s central football facility is the reason for the game being pushed back from 7 to 4 p.m.
If Ike’s arrival has hurt any program, it’s South Houston’s. Shy of varsity minutes by many on the roster, South Houston needed its full allotment of three non-district games. Now the Trojans are set to go into 22-5A battles with just one.
But for the moment, head coach C.L. Whittington is most concerned with the safety and whereabouts of his players.
“A lot of our kids have been displaced. Until that stability of school comes back in, we’re just hoping to get as many as possible to show up. The superintendant has allowed us to go ahead and prepare for the game and as he said he wants it to get back as normal as possible so the kids can understand that things do go on,” Whittington said Saturday.
So the players in town will be going from Sept. 10 to the 21st without the shoulder pads, a thought no one ever imagined would happen in any given year. But thanks to Ike, the 2008 season has become no ordinary year.
NOTES: Hurricane Ike toppled 11 large trees on Ellisor’s property in West Columbia, but none landed on the house. Under mandatory evacuation orders, the Ellisors stayed with family in San Marcos to ride out the storm. … The goalpost at the south end of Memorial’s practice field was torn in half by Ike’s winds. … Across the street from Pasadena’s practice field, what appears to be a large advertisement from a billboard is caught among the branches of a tree. … Sam Rayburn practiced on its field closest to the school Saturday out of concern that there may be nails on its usual practice field. Part of the roof that overhung a breezeway at the PISD Pasadena Boulevard Staff Development Center was tossed onto the field during the storm. Bussey and his staff removed the debris on Wednesday. Video towers were also damaged. … Power was restored to Sam Rayburn and South Houston high schools on Wednesday. … Pearland High School’s football stadium, “The Rig,” had its scoreboard destroyed by Ike and the uprights on both goalposts were snapped, leaving essentially the crossbars. Next to The Rig, Ike’s winds also toppled a light pole along the right-field foul line at Pearland’s varsity baseball field, bending the pole about halfway up. But Ike was polite enough to send the bank of lights crashing to the ground outside of the chain-link fence that borders the field.
Pasadena, Memorial, Sam Rayburn and South Houston all took their first post-Ike steps in the last 48 hours, venturing forth with practices, albeit without a full compliment of players.
PASADENA
While their school across the street remained without power, the Eagles began their preparation for area-ranked Pearland with 24 overall players, 15 of them on the varsity roster.
That mattered little to Jeff Ganske, Pasadena’s new head coach. For the first time in nearly a week he could forget about damage to his home caused by Hurricane Ike.
“It’s good to be back playing football,” Ganske said.
Prior to some conditioning work, Ganske and other coaches made it pretty crystal clear to those in attendance that they better get on their cell phones or whatever means and contact those who weren’t at Friday’s practice. The message: The Eagles need all hands on deck for a 2 p.m. Monday practice. But that may be easier said than done since some players are likely out of town to escape homes still without power or homes damaged by the hurricane.
Despite the struggles of the area to rebound from the deadly storm, the coaching staff was attempting to sink in the message that the district race will be held one way or another and that it was just days away.
Along those lines, Ganske announced that their district opener with the Oilers has been moved from Friday night to Saturday afternoon at 2 at Pearland.
“Everything is tentative. You still don’t know when you’re going to get your kids back,” Pasadena assistant coach Mike Ellisor said. “It could work out where we don’t get our kids back till Thursday or Friday. You can’t get ready for that game on Saturday. With that in mind, they’ve given us the OK to begin practice. It’s something we’re going to have to play by ear because they’ve been off for a week. You gotta get them back in some kind of shape. You don’t want to go out there and get them injured.”
Eagles quarterback Damon Ojeda was among the varsity players trying to get their thoughts trained again on Xs and Os of the game. It’s his legs that have made the team’s signal-caller the greatest threat so far. He’s averaging 10.1 yards per carry after rushing for 61 yards on just six carries.
MEMORIAL
At Memorial, the Mavericks had almost 40 players participating in Friday’s practice. Because their first district game is at the moment slated to be played two days earlier than Pasadena, a sense of urgency was more prevalent.
“This whole week we had off we were supposed to come up here and lift (weights),” Mavs quarterback Tate Gresham said.
The Mavericks’ last official practice was on Sept. 10 so the unknown factor will be how well Memorial will be able to not only pick up where it left off but will the Mavs be in condition that will carry them for 48 minutes of not just a game, but a 22-5A game?
“These two days have been like knocking the rust off,” offensive lineman Jacob Socie said. “I think once we put the pads on we’ll pick up where we left off.”
“I think football’s kind of getting us back in the schedule like with school,” Gresham said. “It’s kind of easier because we don’t have to worry about school.”
The full gear wasn’t part of Friday’s scene at either Pasadena or Memorial. It was as if the clock had been turned back to August and those four heat-acclimated days teams must go through before slipping on the pads.
SAM RAYBURN
Sam Rayburn’s game this week with La Porte has tentatively been moved to Saturday afternoon at 2 in La Porte.
The Texans worked out Saturday morning with a healthy dose of players. The focus was seeing how much had been retained since the last practice.
“Yesterday (Friday) and today, we just went into our own offense versus our own defense and got in some conditioning. The spirits are pretty good,” Rayburn head coach Chris Bussey said.
Bussey’s staff also made it a point to see where everyone stood as far as circumstances were concerned at home. A large number of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were available to the players after practice.
But for the coaching staff, it’s been all about preparing and nothing about playing for the last two frustrating weeks.
“It’s been a wild ride. We went from preparing for Baytown Sterling and then when that game got cancelled I had already planned a game during our off week versus Manvel. Then we started preparing for Manvel and then that game got cancelled. Now we’re preparing for La Porte. It feels like we’ve played three games and we haven’t played any yet,” Bussey said.
SOUTH HOUSTON
South Houston’s district opener at Newcomb Field has tentatively been set for Friday afternoon at 4 against Deer Park. Power concerns at PISD’s central football facility is the reason for the game being pushed back from 7 to 4 p.m.
If Ike’s arrival has hurt any program, it’s South Houston’s. Shy of varsity minutes by many on the roster, South Houston needed its full allotment of three non-district games. Now the Trojans are set to go into 22-5A battles with just one.
But for the moment, head coach C.L. Whittington is most concerned with the safety and whereabouts of his players.
“A lot of our kids have been displaced. Until that stability of school comes back in, we’re just hoping to get as many as possible to show up. The superintendant has allowed us to go ahead and prepare for the game and as he said he wants it to get back as normal as possible so the kids can understand that things do go on,” Whittington said Saturday.
So the players in town will be going from Sept. 10 to the 21st without the shoulder pads, a thought no one ever imagined would happen in any given year. But thanks to Ike, the 2008 season has become no ordinary year.
NOTES: Hurricane Ike toppled 11 large trees on Ellisor’s property in West Columbia, but none landed on the house. Under mandatory evacuation orders, the Ellisors stayed with family in San Marcos to ride out the storm. … The goalpost at the south end of Memorial’s practice field was torn in half by Ike’s winds. … Across the street from Pasadena’s practice field, what appears to be a large advertisement from a billboard is caught among the branches of a tree. … Sam Rayburn practiced on its field closest to the school Saturday out of concern that there may be nails on its usual practice field. Part of the roof that overhung a breezeway at the PISD Pasadena Boulevard Staff Development Center was tossed onto the field during the storm. Bussey and his staff removed the debris on Wednesday. Video towers were also damaged. … Power was restored to Sam Rayburn and South Houston high schools on Wednesday. … Pearland High School’s football stadium, “The Rig,” had its scoreboard destroyed by Ike and the uprights on both goalposts were snapped, leaving essentially the crossbars. Next to The Rig, Ike’s winds also toppled a light pole along the right-field foul line at Pearland’s varsity baseball field, bending the pole about halfway up. But Ike was polite enough to send the bank of lights crashing to the ground outside of the chain-link fence that borders the field.
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