News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
As the Friday night lights loom large, head coaches across the Upper Cumberland are spending their summers getting their teams physically and mentally ready for the season ahead.
After a successful 8-4 campaign last season, Cookeville High School head coach Taylor Hennigan has leaned into his philosophy of togetherness and resilience.
“We talked about love and accountability and, you know, toughness,” Hennigan said. “A lot of those things are…I guess, cliché. But, you know, for us especially when you’ve got guys in our program, they know what that means.”
Hennigan said that the summer is a great time to get freshman and newcomers acclimated to the program, but he feels blessed to have returning players that he can rely on.
“We’ve got a really strong group of leaders, a very big group of leaders,” Hennigan said. “A lot of different, you know, people in our program that we require and we count on to kind of be the leaders of the team.”
In Warren County, head coach Matt Turner has already highlighted week one and week two match ups against Dekalb and White County.
“Dekalb County is our season opener and of course these two this year are on the road,” Turner said. “Cross town rivalry, and you know we all got the same kids, but you know, that’s one that we are really focusing on.”
While Turner is looking ahead to the fall, he tells his player to stay in the present and to spend this summer grinding to get better every day.
“I tell the kids that we are really just focused on controlling what we can control, you know,” Turner said. “We can control our conditioning and our preparation for knowing our assignments and things of that nature, you know. And then we’ll see what happens there.”
Entering year 11 as Monterey’s head coach, Scott Hughes is sticking to his principles of not a lot of flash or fluff on the field and fellowship of it.
“For us during the summer, we just really continue with our team building series,” Hughes said. “Trying to become a closer team and develop togetherness. The other aspect we really strive to get daily is competitive.”
Hughes said he is using these summer practices to put his players in uncomfortable situations to find out who his x-factors are.
“We’re very open with our players on, you know, the fact that we’re evaluating every day,” Hughes said. “We’re evaluating from the ground up. You know, how they handle situations, how they overcome adversity.”
