By JOE DODD
The 2009 edition of Gilmer Buckeyes’ football gets underway Monday evening with the start of two-a-day practices. Varsity and Junior Varsity players report to the Field House at 4:30 p.m. with the first practice running from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The second practice starts at approximately 8:45 p.m. Freshmen report Tuesday morning at 8 and practice from 9 to 11.
“We’re excited,” said Gilmer head coach Jeff Traylor. “We have so many players returning, there’s not as many question marks as there usually are. We’ve got to find some receivers, a couple of offensive linemen, and a couple of defensive linemen. But the rest of our team is pretty much intact.”
That should bode well for the Buckeyes, who finished last season with a 12-2 record, losing to eventual State Champion Carthage by only three points. Despite the depth of seasoned veterans, Traylor plans to stick to the fundamentals when practice starts.
“We have to develop our lower level kids, our JV, and our back-ups,” explained Traylor. “So we’ll still follow the same procedure. Our expectations might be a little higher. Our execution should be more crisp.”
Entering his 10th season at the helm of the Buckeyes, Traylor’s practices are unique in that the public is encouraged to attend, coaches’ young children are everywhere, and music blares from the stadium speakers. Even the concession stand will be open during the late practice.
“We don’t have anything to hide,” Traylor said. “The Field House is always open, practices are always open. The coaches are gone so much, I want them to be around their families as much as they can so I let their kids come up here and hang out.”
As for the music, Traylor reasons “Kids today are used to that stuff. They like to have a good time. As long as they are working hard and they’re focused, I’ll leave the music on.”
All of the potential distractions at practice should also help the team deal with the pressure of being ranked number one in Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine preseason poll.
“We expect to compete for a state championship every year, so our expectations never change,” stated Traylor. “All these kids know what’s at stake here. They know about the home winning streak, they know about the district winning streak, and they know our expectations are playing for it all every year and win it.”
Traylor insists that each team is defined by its seniors, and this year will be no exception. “I’m just excited to see this senior group take ownership of the team. I really want to see who the leaders are going to be. We had a lot of seniors in 2006 and they were preseason number one and we just didn’t get it done that year. It will be interesting to see how these kids handle the preseason number one compared to that 2006 group.”
The 2009 edition of Gilmer Buckeyes’ football gets underway Monday evening with the start of two-a-day practices. Varsity and Junior Varsity players report to the Field House at 4:30 p.m. with the first practice running from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The second practice starts at approximately 8:45 p.m. Freshmen report Tuesday morning at 8 and practice from 9 to 11.
“We’re excited,” said Gilmer head coach Jeff Traylor. “We have so many players returning, there’s not as many question marks as there usually are. We’ve got to find some receivers, a couple of offensive linemen, and a couple of defensive linemen. But the rest of our team is pretty much intact.”
That should bode well for the Buckeyes, who finished last season with a 12-2 record, losing to eventual State Champion Carthage by only three points. Despite the depth of seasoned veterans, Traylor plans to stick to the fundamentals when practice starts.
“We have to develop our lower level kids, our JV, and our back-ups,” explained Traylor. “So we’ll still follow the same procedure. Our expectations might be a little higher. Our execution should be more crisp.”
Entering his 10th season at the helm of the Buckeyes, Traylor’s practices are unique in that the public is encouraged to attend, coaches’ young children are everywhere, and music blares from the stadium speakers. Even the concession stand will be open during the late practice.
“We don’t have anything to hide,” Traylor said. “The Field House is always open, practices are always open. The coaches are gone so much, I want them to be around their families as much as they can so I let their kids come up here and hang out.”
As for the music, Traylor reasons “Kids today are used to that stuff. They like to have a good time. As long as they are working hard and they’re focused, I’ll leave the music on.”
All of the potential distractions at practice should also help the team deal with the pressure of being ranked number one in Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine preseason poll.
“We expect to compete for a state championship every year, so our expectations never change,” stated Traylor. “All these kids know what’s at stake here. They know about the home winning streak, they know about the district winning streak, and they know our expectations are playing for it all every year and win it.”
Traylor insists that each team is defined by its seniors, and this year will be no exception. “I’m just excited to see this senior group take ownership of the team. I really want to see who the leaders are going to be. We had a lot of seniors in 2006 and they were preseason number one and we just didn’t get it done that year. It will be interesting to see how these kids handle the preseason number one compared to that 2006 group.”
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