Rosewood subscribes to football basics

By Justin Hayes
Published in Sports on July 28, 2016 1:48 PM

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West of the softball complex, where the players drilled, a farmer's prescribed fire huffed against a high noon sun. A plume of smoke, black and spiraled, spent itself in the suffocating dewpoint.

Behind them, hidden by a hedge row of shrubs, a few lonely cars of the Norfolk Southern Railway rambled by at layman's speed.

"Two for the train," a voice yelled.

And with a bullet, an already taxed group of linemen hit the ground for a prerequisite number of push-ups. It's part tradition, part full metal jacket.

Welcome to varsity football mini-camp, Rosewood Edition.

On Wednesday, with midday temperatures mocking the low 90's, the Eagles of head coach Robert Britt worked with a controlled abandon, covering any and all manner of fundamentals and higher-order concepts.

Make no mistake, class was in session.

There was base alignment.

Gap agility drills.

Ball reactions and read steps.

The environment was a living, breathing, working wire of high-energy, high-twitch content.

And above it all, with great frequency, were the voices of the Eagle coaching staff -- a group as dedicated as they are animated.

"If you make a mistake right now," assistant Jason King noted, "make it going a hundred miles an hour... make it with your hair on fire."

It was a sentiment bellowed in every drill set, by every position coach on every repetition, and in as many varied degrees as possible.

The words were also echoed by the players.

Accountability, it seems, lives here.

"You have to get used to being uncomfortable," head coach Robert Britt offered, "(you have to) listen to instructions when you're tired."

"In a chaotic situation, you have to be able to hear what a coach is saying and apply it."

Cue the program's 26 upperclassmen.

Unlike most outfits, the Eagles haven't had to spend the dog days cycling through endless installation and repetition. Thanks to a healthy crop of returning players, that work was filed earlier this summer.

"What we did this year, all the stuff we were going to do on the field, we did in the month of June," Britt said, "I thought the kids did a good job (today)."

The environment was a living, breathing, working wire of high-energy, high-twitch content.

And above it all, with great frequency, were the voices of the Eagle coaching staff -- a group as dedicated as they are animated.

"If you make a mistake right now," assistant Jason King noted, "make it going a hundred miles an hour... make it with your hair on fire."

It was a sentiment bellowed in every drill set, by every position coach on every repetition, and in as many varied degrees as possible.

Accountability doesn't just live here. It has proper roots.

"You have to get used to being uncomfortable," head coach Robert Britt offered, "(you have to) listen to instructions when you're tired."

"In a chaotic situation, you have to be able to hear what a coach is saying and apply it."

Cue the program's 26 upperclassmen.

Unlike most outfits, the Eagles haven't had to spend the dog days of camp cycling through endless installation and repetition. Thanks to a healthy crop of returning players, that work was filed earlier this summer.

"What we did this year, all the stuff we were going to do on the field, we did in the month of June," Britt said, "I thought the kids did a good job (today)."

The players' opening salvo, however, will need a signature encore.

By next week, as the team transitions from a camp setting to the pomp of opening day, the staff's goal is to be working with its players on a different, less direct communicative level.

"We wanted our older group to be able to run base plays right now," Britt explained, "and by the end of next week, the kids should be able to understand when we cue them."

Gridiron shorthand, in other words.

Ultimately, this week's mini-camp at Rosewood can be distilled in a variety of crisp, easily identifiable markings.

Drill work is team work. All in.

Gassers are non-negotiable. All in.

And the train, the old Norfolk Southern, never stops.

There is a way through it all, though. Just provide a punishing answer to the coach's question on Friday nights.

"How fast can you play in a five yard box?," he asked. "How many violent steps can you take?"