Football teams prepare for new season

By Melissa McCaghren

Slatonite GM

Monday morning, waves of red and black filled the football grounds at Tiger Field.

Six miles away, a sea of grey and maroon filled the fields at Roosevelt even after a late night, albeit slightly rainy, appearance.

The 2019 Area Qualifying Slaton Tiger team and the Roosevelt Eagles were two of the hundreds of other 1A-4A schools who started their football two-a-days Monday morning (Aug. 3).

The University Interscholastic League announced late July that the four classes would start on time, while 5A and 6A would start five weeks later. Slaton and Roosevelt are both in Class 3A.

New Slaton Head Football Coach and Athletic Director Lawrence Johnson said the first day of two-a-days practice went well. “We won the first day, and I really feel like we were after them,” he said. “There’s lots of things to fix, but we got it done. That’s one thing we challenged our coaches to do and myself included – we got to bring it for the kids.”

Roosevelt Football Coach Matt Landers, who is in his third year as head coach, said his team’s first day also went off well, and they were all excited to start playing again.

That said, it was a bit bittersweet, as they had to cancel Midnight Madness due to dangerous lightning in the area.

“It was a bit of a disappointment for us to have to cancel our Midnight Madness,” he said. “I know the players and community were really looking forward to us getting back on the field and having football again. Our players are really good with handling adversity and we just adjusted and decided to get in the weight room and get some work in for the day.”

For more information, please read the Thursday edition of The Slatonite.