For all intents and purposes, “Spring” for Houston County began in the “Winter” – Christmas to be exact, said Head Coach Ryan Crawford.
That, he said, is when the Bears, like everyone else, working their way through Covid and the unknowns that came/still come with it, went back to their “normal workout routine, which is having our guys in class in sixth period.
“It starts with the weight room. We believe that and we preach that. For us to have a chance. We’ve got to get stronger. I think our guys do a great job in the weight room in the phases in our program. We have different phases in our weight room. We have five phases. January (to) February is a phase. We’re putting on weight. We’re just trying to get as strong as we can and lift as much as we can.
“And then we come back after the break and we start kind of a hybrid workout slash station type work, agilities, where we’re working on some things. And then we do our kind of a military type work. We’re in the gym. We’re doing some things. Thumbs up. Thumbs down. The coaches are on the guys to make sure we’re doing things right.”
You find out through that, he continued, who wants to be on the team. “You’ve got to invest. Everybody wants to play football when it’s time to play, but, ‘Are you really invested in the program?’
“And that’s when I find out if the kids are really invested in the program or not, by their commitment level and some things there.”
The next phase, Crawford said, was doing agilities on the field – with the weight room sprinkled in, getting them acclimated to the weather, etc.
Houston County finished 5-6 this past year. The Bears aren’t losing a big senior class, Crawford said, but they did lose several key players in the backfield. For more on his plan on replacing them, thoughts on the defense and the coaching staff, click on the link below.
