Practice Practice Practice

A reprint of my Sept. 10 SlapShots column

"It's not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win that makes the difference.”
-Paul Bear Bryant

Every athlete wants to win. Every team begins a season wanting a championship. Every competitor takes the field struggling and striving, wanting to reach the top.

But simply wanting something does not make it so. At some point, DOING must factor into the equation.

And that doing begins long before those stadium lights flicker on – in out-of-the-way places, at unlikely times, in quiet moments broken only by grunts, labored breathing and the sharp, staccato commands of coaches.

Behind every moment under the blazing stadium lights and for every goose bump raised on an athlete’s arm when the fans scream with abandon, stretch hours of inglorious sweat and pain on the practice field.

Every athlete has suffered through “one of those” practices. The workout where it seems nobody on the team can find the same page. The one in which the last 30 minutes consists of running “gassers” because the team failed to accomplish anything else on the field. Athletes hate those practices. They look forward to them with the kind of dread normally reserved for a stint in the dental chair. And when it finally ends and the team has safely gathered in the locker room, it collectively showers the coach, long out of earshot, with horrible invectives for putting them through such torture.

But a method exists within the coach’s madness. The skipper knows that without preparation, the team will tank it in competition.

When I was playing hockey for the University of South Florida, our coach would often tell us, “You will only play as well as you practice.”

It was amazingly accurate prophecy.

The Woodford County High School football team learned that lesson last week. After what was reportedly a lackluster week of practice, lacking in focus and intensity, the Jackets lost a game to Dunbar – a team they should have beat. The lack of focus and intensity seemed to spill over from the practice field into Community Stadium.

“When you don’t prepare, you get beat,” Woodford coach Chris Tracy told his team after the disappointing loss.

But an early season defeat like the Jackets suffered at the hands of Dunbar can prove positive, IF the team learns the lesson.

“I hope that focuses you, because in the grand scheme of things, this game doesn’t mean a thing,” Tracy said.

Nope, the game didn’t mean a thing in the overall picture. It was a match-up against a team in another class. (Woodford plays in 5A and Dunbar competes as a 6A school.) But it could well prove a turning point in the season – if the team takes the lesson to heart and puts the effort in on the practice field.

Yellow Jacket quarterback Ryan Garrahan has the right idea.

“All we can do is get out in practice and bust our butts to correct the mistakes.”

That’s the secret. Busting butts – every minute of every practice.

I have no doubt that the Jackets want to win, but will their desire to win translate into a will to prepare?

Quick Shots

As I walked into Community Stadium last Friday, I got a little thrill as I looked up into the stands and saw them filled with yellow and black. There’s nothing like the atmosphere of a Friday night high school football game, especially in a small town. The sound of the marching band, the chants of the cheerleaders, the churning prism of school colors, the adolescent bravado of the players and the carefree giggles of teenage flirting all wrapped in the bright white stadium lighting captures something uniquely Americana. In a country that often seems torn and fractured by political rhetoric, a small town high school football game does something politicians and pundits find impossible. It brings a community together.

Easy there UK fan. It was just Miami of Ohio. Yes, your Wildcats looked pretty good. The offense put points on the board and the defense pitched a shutout. But keep in mind that they were facing a small conference team with a brand new coach, and there were some things that would concern me if I were a Big Blue fan. The offense was pretty much the Randal Cobb show, and a one-dimensional attack isn’t going to cut it against an SEC defense. And speaking of defense, the Wildcat D failed to put pressure on the Miami QB throughout most of the game, and that could spell big trouble down the line. But the good news for the Cat faithful is that UK beat a team that they should beat. That hasn’t always been the case. It may well prove a good season for the Wildcats, but don’t get delusions of grandeur based on this game.

I was looking at the qualifying order before the NASCAR Pep Boys Auto 500 race. As I was reading the order to my wife, she asked me where Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified. I told her I hadn’t gotten to him yet, to which she replied, “You should have started from the back.” Kasey Kahne won the race, running away after a late caution. Earnhardt took 17th.

Quote of the Week

“I don’t think toughness is when a quarterback says, ‘I’m going to run somebody over.’ Toughness is playing the worst game of your life, but not backing down. You don’t want to sit on the sideline. You want to stay in there and win.”
-Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger

Puck to the head

This week’s puck flies at the head of University of Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount for punching Boise State defensive end Byron Hout in the jaw after the Sept. 3 game between the Ducks and Broncos. Blount allegedly threw the punch after Hout taunted him. Apparently Blount missed that whole “names can never hurt me” thing in grade school.