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Buckeyes to begin practices

By JOE DODD
The Gilmer Buckeyes will start two-a-day practices Monday, Aug. 6, with 10th-12th grade student-athletes reporting to the new Field House at 5 p.m. Team meetings will start at 5:30 p.m., with the first practice running from 6-7:30 p.m. at Buckeye Stadium. After a short break, meetings will resume at 8 p.m., followed by the final practice session from 8:30-10 p.m.
Buckeyes’ head coach Jeff Traylor is ready for the start of the new season. “It’s always an exciting time because you don’t know what’s going to happen; you never know. These are always fun times,” said Traylor, who begins his 8th season in Gilmer with an amazing 71-14 record.
The Buckeyes will enjoy the use of the school’s new Field House completed this spring. “We can fit so many more kids into the locker rooms, and we can handle so many more kids in the weight room, so it’s going to have a lot of benefits,” stated Traylor.
In addition to the new Field House, another change for Traylor’s Buckeyes will be more practices before the start of school, due to the State Legislature’s mandatory start date of August 27th. “We’ll have three weeks of two-a-days, which that will be nice because we’re going to be so young. We’re so young on defense, that we need all that extra practice,” commented Traylor. “I think we only had about seven days of two-a-day practices last year, versus this year where we’ll have fifteen.”
This will be the third year that the Buckeyes have practiced in the evening on the stadium’s field turf installed in 2005. “We love it,” Traylor explained. “One, a lot of people come out and watch us play, and two, the heat. And I like it that my kids only have to come one time a day.”
Last year, an estimated 250 people watched the Buckeyes first practice sessions. “I think it just shows how important it is to this community, and how exciting it is for them to go out there and watch those kids,” stated Traylor. “The more people that are there, the better; boys like to play in front of crowds.”
Incoming freshmen football players will report to the new Field House Tuesday morning at 8:00 a.m. Practice will run from 9:00-10:30 a.m.


Mirror Photo
BUCKEYE STADIUM will begin to see a lot more activity on Monday, Aug. 6, and players and fans alike hope it will still be in use for practices well into December.

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