By John Raffel
Córrespondent
The start of football practice is less than three weeks away but coaches and teams are already getting ready.
This includes Ryan Casey, coach of the Van Buren co-op which includes Bangor, Lawrence and Covert.
“We have been strength and conditioning since the spring and have had football camp a couple of nights in June,” Casey said. “We have a number of activities planned for the month of July such as passing league in Bridgman, football camp days, team building activities such as a kickball tournament and cleaning up after the Fourth of July fireworks in Bangor.
“This is fairly typical of what I want to establish as our norm for the summer.The turnout has been hot and cold. There has been some things happen with some of our kids that they’ve missed. The camp days have been decent, and there has already been growth on the field and in the weight room.”
At these particular sessions, “we emphasize that we are not three different schools, we are one team,” Casey said. “The idea of the kids being from different schools has not been a problem and we want to keep it that way. The other is effort. It doesn’t matter if you’ve played the game for 10 years or if this is your first time, give 100% effort every chance you get.
“We have been working to instill a 1-0 mentality. We go 1-0 in everything we do. Every drill, every rep, every play, every sprint, every assignment in class, we are trying to WIN in that moment.”
How important is summer for the program.
“The summer is extremely important for everyone,” Casey replied. “For us, this year is even more important due to the new formed co-op. We have coaches who are new some kids, some kids that are new to some coaches, blending the communities together is vital. Year one, the summer and everything we do in it, is extremely important to get our program’s foundation built and solidified for what we want this program to become in the years to come.”
