The first week of summer practices leading up to the 2010 Texas high school football season are in the books. Players ran around in shorts, T-shirts and helmets from Monday through Thursday before putting on full pads on Friday.

SEAHAWKS

Riviera-Kaufer High School Head Coach Perry Graves was gratified, mostly, with the overall physical condition of his team on Day One.

“Of course, they’re never in football shape when you first get them but I was still pleased with their conditioning,” Graves said. “I was expecting them to be in a little worse shape than they were but they showed up in pretty good shape.”

Entering his first year as the Seahawks’ skipper, Graves spent the first four days of summer workouts focusing on the A-B-C’s.

“We’ve been doing a lot of drill and individual station work,” Graves said. “We’ve been doing very little team work as we are trying to get some things out of our system and polishing others back up before we put on the pads and seeing where we are at.”

The water-birds have a plethora of players working out this season, which has Graves feeling pretty good.

“Our numbers are unbelievable, the amount of kids we have out (67) is great,” Graves said. “I am real pleased with those numbers, which gives us depth, and the specialties we can teach these boys. “

BRAHMAS

H.M. King High School Head Coach Robert Wilcox’s idea of running a summer speed camp seems to have paid off with the bulk of his players showing up in decent shape on Day One of practice.

“They were not in bad shape at all because most of our kids were here throughout the summer during our speed camp,” Wilcox said. “I think the speed camp proved very valuable because most of our football players reported in good shape.”

Now Wilcox is hoping he, his players and newly hired assistant coaches can all get on the same page in the playbook.

“The biggest thing we have been trying to do, more than anything else, is get our kids to recognize what we are doing because obviously we’re implementing a different offense and defense,” Wilcox said. “With me getting here in the middle of May, and us not hiring a staff until over the summer, a lot of the kids are trying to catch up to what the other programs have been running for 5-15 years. The kids, however, have done a good job of absorbing things and we are really excited with their willingness to learn to do the best job they can this season.”

Wilcox is also hoping the community is ready to back the bulls this season.

“I think that is huge anywhere you are at, there is just no way to put a value on community support,” Wilcox said. “You want to have as much of that as you can possibly get. You want your younger kids growing up wanting to be a part of the athletic program.”

BADGERS

Bishop High School Head Coach George Luna wasted no time in getting his boys running on Day One.

“The conditions when we started on Monday were intense and some of the kids were not in the best of shape,” Luna said. “We did a lot of running, which was some of the most intense we have had in a long time, and the heat was tough on Monday. We had a good turnout with our summer Champion’s Course and I was happy with that, but I guess weather and having those two weeks off before two-a-day practices kind of contributed to that also. “

Luna said he has about 50 boys out for the team thus far and that he’d still like some more to show up.

“We did have some kids who came out that I did not expect and they are stepping up to the challenge,” Luna said. “We also have some other kids showing up who have never played football before so that is also a plus. Building this program is going to be a slow process but we have a lot of young players who are going to become tough in the upcoming years.”

LIONS

Santa Gertrudis Academy High School Head Coach Wally Moon could easily tell which of his players were ready-to-go on Day One, and which were ready-but-slow.

“Some of them were in pretty good shape but most of them weren’t,” Moon said. “A lot of that can be attributed to sitting on the couch this summer, plus also the heat. We had a number of them who were involved with our summer workouts and they have been doing fine, but you can tell which ones missed the weight room this summer.”

One big task for Moon and his staff right now is instilling the need for the daily grind of practice into the Lions.

“Part of our approach is getting them used to the idea that this is what they have to do,” Moon said. “But I think as we progress it will become more of a part of the routine especially with the younger kids.”

Still, Academy is well ahead at this juncture compared to previous seasons.

“We have most of our offense installed, the kids seem to have picked up the things we have changed, that are new, real well,” Moon said. “There is a great deal of enthusiasm and we seem to be ahead at this point right now than we have been in the last couple of years.”