Fall Practice Work Underway, Injury Alert

As high school football practices begin, Upper Cumberland coaches are on high alert for injuries.

White County Head Coach Curtis Beaty said his team uses the weight room to ward off the injury bug.

“We’re a weight room team, so we stay in the weight room as much as possible,” Beaty said. “Up until, you know, you can’t and you got to get on the field and do X’s and O’s and things. So, we do a lot of weight room work to prevent injuries.”

Monterey Head Coach Scott Hughes said that due to his roster’s size, losing a player this early is a huge blow to the program.

“Well obviously the concern is always there for us with injuries, probably a lot more than people in our area,” Hughes said. “Just because of the depth concerns and roster size. Right now, you know, our roster is not very big. So every day that is a huge concern for us.”

Hughes said that he preaches the importance of proper sleep, nutrition and hydration to be proactive and prevent injuries.

Beaty said the key to cranking up fall football practice is taking it slow.

“Well, I mean, you got to take a little bit more precaution coming back because although we trust kids during the dead period to put in some extra work on their own, it’s still not going to be the same as the coaches would like most likely,” Beaty said. “Because at the same time, you tell those kids to get some rest. So you got to slowly get back to the routine in the first couple weeks just to let them get their legs and stuff back underneath them.”

Beaty said the process of reacclimating his players to football activities involves doing drills at half speed and slowly build up to game speeds. Something that Hughes has implemented in Monterey.

“We spend so much time, you know, talking about the fundamentals of tackling and hitting,” Hughes said. “We spend so much time each day working on the proper technique, how to tackle, how to hit, how to use your shoulders, how to use your hands from an elementary level all the way up.”