Football team trains year-round to attempt to defend State title

By Min Qiao
<[email protected]>

The sound of metal clinked throughout the room as Alicia Key’s “No One” blasted over the radio. The metallic smell of sweat lingered everywhere. Quarterback and senior Morgan Newton reluctantly began his second repetition of squats.

Newton was enrolled in the advanced physical conditioning (APC) class here last year and has been training throughout the year for the upcoming football season. After last year’s championship-winning season, the pressure is higher then ever on these athletes.

As Newton finished of the last rep of the squats and wiped the seat off his forehead, a tiny smile began to curve on his face.

“It’s hard work. It’s hard,” Newton said. “But I know that it will pay off with a good season. We did it last year and hopefully we can do it again this year. Hopefully, we can win another State championship.”

Head Coach Mo Moriarty said, “Once you accomplish that goal of winning a State championship, the expectations will always be high. Right, wrong or indifferent. That means that whether they should be high or not, they will always be high now. It’s like once the Colts won the Superbowl and now everybody thinks that they should win it every year. So, now, since we won the State championship, everybody is going to expect us to win State.”

Linebacker and junior Randal “Randy” Bowlen, who was also enrolled in the APC course, said that even though the others’ expectations might be higher, the team’s expectations of itself are pretty much the same. The expectation, he said, is lots of hard work.

On top of their regular season practices, Moriarity said that a lot of work and dedication is required of the players off-season.

“To be successful, it takes a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication, a lot of commitment, and it’s not just in football, but it’s whatever you choose to do, whether it’s academics, athletics. There’s a lot of commitment if you are going to be good,” Moriarity said.

According to Newton, the football players here train pretty much year-round. He said that almost all the players are enrolled in APC during the school year and also attend different group practices throughout the year. In the summer, Newton said, they attend various camps for intensive training. Then in July, they began their intense two-a-day workouts.

“(As a result of off-season training), I feel that it is obvious that we are a lot stronger as a group,” Newton said. “Even though it’s tough work and we all complain about it, we do feel that APC and gives us an advantage when it comes to competition.”

Moriarity said that he agrees with this sentiment exactly. Even though classes like APC is not required, it is highly recommended.

“You look at athletes in APC now and you are going to see that they are attaining a higher level of success. You can go to every sport right now and look at some of their top players. They are all in APC,” Moriarity said. “It’s across the board. It’s every sport. Look at almost every sport and look at your top two or three performers, girls and boys, and they are all in APC now. So it does make a difference.”

For Newton, a key factor that motivates him to work so hard off-season is finishing off with a great season before college. In addition, he said that the support that he receives from fans and other players also pushes him to work as hard as he can. Another motivator for the players, Moriarity said, is the success that hard work has enabled their program to have.

“Once you win a State championship and you taste that, you just want more of it. So it’s a motivator. There’s no question to try to do it again. Through the hard work, through the weight program, we’ve been able to get to a high level. And they’ve witnessed that first hand,” Moriarity said. “At the same time, as they get stronger in the weight room, they get more confidence in themselves in what they can achieve.”

“I’m not going to lie. Obviously, we are going to be a little bit more cockier than we were,” Bowlen said. “But in the end, I think it just makes us work harder. We know that everybody wants to beat us ’cause we are the State champions.”

Bowlen also said that a lot of the players actually go beyond what is demanded of them from the coaches. Personally, he said he works out at home sometimes in order to keep up with the older guys that are playing and so that he can compete at a higher level. Even though there are no games during the off-season, Bowlen said that he still competes

“We compete with each other and with ourselves. We are constantly measuring ourselves up with each other. So, in a way, we do compete,” Bowlen said. “ But, I would say for the most part it is just trying to make myself better then the guy that’s going to be lining up across from me next year.”

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