Apaches making strides in first week
Courtesy of The Minden Press-Herald
After Friday’s two practices, the Glenbrook Apaches will have completed their first week of two-a-day workouts.
Monday through Thursday, the Apaches worked out in shorts and t-shirts, starting today they will add shoulder pads and then go to full pads on Monday.
”The kids are working hard and we’ve had a successful week,” Glenbrook head coach Ryan Porter said. “We’ve been able to get a lot of work done.”
The Apaches will continue their two-a-day workouts through next week and then go to a once-a-day schedule as school starts on August 9th.
Glenbrook will play their jamboree on Friday, August 13 at Union Christian academy in Farmerville. The Apaches first real game will be the next week, August 20 at Claiborne Academy.
“This week has gone real good so far,” Porter said. “We’ve been able to install our basic running and passing packages during the first three days. We’ve been introducing a little special teams stuff every day.”
Despite getting a lot done so far this week, Porter says the team will be a little limited until the pads come on.
“At this point, there’s only so much you can do, until you put the pads on,” he said. “We’re continuing to work on fundamentals, making sure everyone in lining up correctly and the guys are moving in the right direction.”
One thing Porter is working on, is finding replacements for the graduated skill position players from last year’s team.
“we have to replace four receivers and our quarterback,” he said. “We lost a lot of quality guys and it will be tough to replace them, because they were very good football players. But we have some new guys, some young guys that are really stepping up. When we put the pads on and go up against someone else, that’s when we’ll see what we got.”

Lamar standout working hard in Oxford

By Darron Thomas

Former Lamar standout Witt Haggard has put in a full summer of work as he prepares for his freshman year at Ole Miss. Haggard was classified as a “preferred walk-on” but is confident that his development will progress and he will ultimately be a solid contributor to the Ole Miss football program.
Haggard passed for 3,798 yards and 51 touchdowns in his senior season at Lamar under head coach Mac Barnes and while he did have offers from a variety of small schools Haggard made the decision to pursue his goal of playing at a division-I university.
Haggard’s work during the summer has already started paying dividends according to Witt’s father. “He is up every morning at 5:20 am and ready to lift at 5:55 am,” said David Haggard. “You can see his size increasing already after almost two months of workouts with Ole Miss strength coach Don Decker.”
Haggard has been taking classes during the summer while afternoons are filled with throwing and learning plays. “We are all watching him and very excited,” said David Haggard. “He’ll soon get a number and will be listed on the new roster that is due out between now and August 6th.”
Haggard will be #4 on the depth chart and hopes to dress for a lot of the games this season.

Inside The Huddle

Central Hinds head football coach Todd Montgomery talks about the upcoming 2010 season

Parklane Academy loses 2 grid starters
Courtesy of The Enterprise-Journal
Parklane Academy head football coach Bo Milton has experienced a less-than-memorable offseason.
Milton has announced that starting cornerback/slot receiver Hunter Authement will miss the upcoming season after suffering a torn ACL in his right knee.
Junior quarterback Steven Swindle announced he is transferring to Oak Grove this fall.
Swindle’s departure leaves senior Brandon Austin and sophomore Zac Stutzman in competition for the starting job, Milton said.
“They’re getting an equal number of snaps in practice,” Milton said.

Parklane Academy sophomore football player James Michael Schmidt will miss the upcoming season after suffering a freak and frightening accident while night fishing with his friends July 4 at Eagle Lake in Vicksburg.
According to his mother Pam Schmidt, the 16-year-old younger brother of former Parklane multi-sport athlete Chance Schmidt, James Michael sustained the injury when his friend tried to set the hook in a fish that had hit. When the boy jerked the line backward toward Schmidt, the fish came off and the hook hit Schmidt in his right eye.
Mrs. Schmidt said the hook went through her son’s eyeball and exited the sciera, also known as the white of the eye.
“I was thinking, ‘Did this really happen?’ ” James Michael said by phone Monday. “I was just shocked.”
According to Pam Schmidt, the hook remained lodged in her son’s eye for about eight hours. The boy was taken to the emergency room at Parkview Regional Medical Center in Vicksburg, where he and his parents were told that the facility did not have the doctors to treat the injury.
James Michael was then transported by ambulance to Baptist Hospital in Jackson. After a specialist was called in, James Michael underwent surgery to remove the hook.
Mrs. Schmidt said her son received five stitches, which will remain in the eye for several months, but he otherwise has not lost vision in the eye.
“God was watching out for him,” Mrs. Schmidt said. “It’s a miracle he didn’t lose sight in the eye. We’re very grateful.”
While there is a 5 percent chance the injury could be healed by a hard contact lens once the stitches are removed, John Michael said doctors told him there is a 95 percent chance he will need a cornea transplant.
If James Michael does require a cornea transplant, he would no longer be able to play sports, he said.
“You really don’t want to hear anything like that if you love football as much as I do,” he said. “I love the game. But I have to realize that later on in life, it may be for my own good. Later on in life, I’ll be able to see.”

Inside The Huddle

Marshall head football coach Keith Wicker talks about the upcoming 2010 season

MAIS PRESEASON RANKINGS

AAA Top Five
1) Jackson Academy...12-1
2) Jackson Prep..........10-3
3) Washington............10-2
4) Pillow......................9-3
5) Oak Forest...............5-6

AA Top Ten
1) Brookhaven...........15-0
2) River Oaks.............11-2
3) Simpson................11-2
4) North Delta.............7-3
5) Centreville.............9-4
6) Leake.....................7-4
7) Central Hinds.........7-5
8) Marshall.................10-2
9) Lamar....................12-2
10) Silliman................6-5

Single-A Top Ten
1) Trinity....................12-3
2) DeSoto...................13-1
3) Tunica.....................9-4
4) Sylva Bay................9-3
5) Winona...................8-3
6) Riverfield...............10-4
7) Tri-County..............11-2
8) Deer Creek..............8-3
9) Heidelberg..............8-3
10) University..............7-4

Football coach proud to be back at Carroll
Courtesy of The Greenwood Commonwealth
The Carroll Academy athletic teams have many returning coaches this year and two new ones.
Coach Roger Gordon returns as head football coach. Gordon is a graduate of the University of Mississippi, which he attended on a football scholarship. He has coached at CA in the past in a number of areas - high school boys basketball, junior high boys and girls basketball, head junior high football and assistant high school football coach, and all levels of track.
"It's a great honor to be asked to come back here and coach again," he said. "This school is very sentimental to me. The football field is named after my brother, who coached and was headmaster here. A lot of these young men that I'll coach are children of players that I coached when I was here before."
Assisting Gordon will be Joe Taylor and Sim Shanks, a group Gordon is excited about.
"I hope that with the help of Coach Taylor and Coach Shanks we can return Carroll Academy football to the place it was years ago," he said.
Taylor comes to CA from Humphreys Academy, where he was head boys basketball coach and assistant in football and baseball for six years.
He played baseball at Mississippi Delta Community College from 1999 to 2001 and then continued his education at Delta State University, graduating in 2004.
Taylor and his wife have a 2-year-old son and live in Greenwood. He will teach physical education and health and will assist in boys basketball as well as football.
"I'm excited to be a part of Carroll Academy and am looking forward to the upcoming year," he said.
Shanks is returning to CA for his seventh year, and this year he adds athletic director to his responsibilities. He is head baseball coach and assists in football.
Shanks is a graduate of Pensacola Junior College and the University of Mississippi, majoring in history. At Carroll he teaches geography and U.S. history. He and his wife, Missy, have a daughter, 18 months.
Before coming to CA, Shanks was assistant baseball coach at Mississippi Valley State University for two years.
In addition to his headmaster duties, Steve Flemming will continue to coach boys basketball, as he has done at CA for five years. Flemming has also been head coach for boys track and assisted in football, was head coach for one year and has been athletic director and principal for the past four years.
Coach Brenda Corley will start her eighth year at CA. She begins her second year as head junior high school girls basketball coach, and is head coach for junior high and high school track, which she has done for eight years. She teaches seventh- and eighth-grade science and biology.
She is a graduate of Mississippi State University with a bachelor's degree in physical education and health. At MSU she was on a scholarship for track and cross-country, which she ran for the four years she was there.
Corley and her husband, Jim, have two daughters, Brianna, 14, and Memrie, 16.
David Arrington starts his second year as high school girls basketball coach. He also teaches math at CA. He is a graduate of Ole Miss with a major in math, and lacks a thesis to complete a master's degree in anthropology.
Arrington has coached and taught at Calhoun, Kirk, and Marshall academies, as well as the Oxford University School. He has coached basketball, baseball, track, softball and tennis.
Rusty Miller starts his seventh year as head softball coach. Before coming to CA he coached softball at Winona Christian Academy.
He is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi in athletic administration and coaching. He is ranch manager at Evans Angus Ranch in Vaiden.
Payge Thornton assists in softball and also coaches junior high cheerleaders and teaches the 3K class. Amanda Neal coaches high school cheerleaders and will teach the 4K class.
Jessica Brewer coaches the junior high and high school dancing teams.

River Oaks keeps busy

By Cody Futrell

The River Oaks Mustang football team is busy preparing for the fall football season and they recently added one of the parish’s top running backs to their roster.
Teshadi Talton, a senior running back who starred at West Monroe High School the past two seasons, will play his senior year at River Oaks after exhausting his eligibility with the Louisiana High School Athletic Association.
LHSSA rules prohibit players from playing athletics if they turn 19 before Sept. 1. MAIS rules allow players who are still 18 on Aug. 1 to play athletics.
“Teshadi is very talented,” River Oaks head coach Robert Hannah said. “He will be a great addition to the talented group of running backs that we already have.”
The Mustangs are working out three days per week in preparation for the upcoming season and their full camp which opens during the first week of August.
The prospect of adding even more offensive firepower to a River Oaks team that went 11-2 last season will be something special for River Oaks fans. The Mustangs will be able to do some exciting things with so many talented athletes on the field at any give moment.
“We’ll be getting each one of them touches,” Hannah said. “When they are not lined up at running back we will be able to use them as slot back.”
Joining Talton in the backfield will be senior running back Vincent Moore. Moore also plays defensive back for the Mustangs and recently ran a 4.48 40-yard dash at the FCA camp held in West Monroe.
The talents and strong work ethic of the multi-sport star has garnered football scholarship offers from the University of Louisiana-Monroe, University of Louisiana-Lafayette and McNeese State University among others.
The Mustangs coaching staff also anticipates having more depth along the defensive line than in recent years. The Mustangs will now be playing a 4-3 defensive alignment to give the defense an extra presence along the line of scrimmage.
“We will have an even front this season,” Hannah said. “We have some guys returning there and moving up that can play and really help us.”
Some of the returning starters that are expected to be a rushing defensive force for the Mustangs include seniors Seth Lawrence and Brogan Brasseaux and junior Gentry Johnston in the trenches.
Hannah, who has gone 132-51 during his tenure as River Oaks football coach, continues to work the team in evening workout sessions of strength and conditioning drills that will prepare the squad for the heat and humidity that will greet them in full pads just weeks from now.

Pillow players please coach with their intensity in summer workouts
Courtesy of The Greenwood Commonwealth
Pumped up.
That best describes, no pun intended, how Michael Fair feels about his team's summer strength and conditioning program.
"Wow, our guys have worked so hard this summer. They are more than ready for the start of two-a-days," said the third-year Pillow Academy head football coach.
The Mustangs will put the final touches on their summer workout program this week before cranking up practice July 26.
The program, designed to boost quickness, strength and overall conditioning, started June 1 with sessions on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
The workout schedule included 24 days of at least 21/2-hour sessions in often extremely hot and humid conditions. Any player who makes at least 21 of those workouts will get his name printed on back of his jersey this season.
Fair said players who have missed more than three workouts are given a chance to make them up. He expects nearly every one of his 44 players to meet the minimum goal.
"We have really turned up the intensity this summer compared to my first two seasons here," Fair said, "and our guys have responded well. And our seniors, who have been a part of this thing for the last three summers, have shown great leadership in boosting our intensity out there."
The Mustangs are coming off a 9-3 season that ended with a loss to Washington School in the State AAA Division II championship game. Fair believes the sour ending to the 2009 season has helped spark his players' intensity this summer.
"Losing in the state championship game has put a little fuel on the fire. Our guys are working awfully hard and pushing one another to the max so we can get back to the state championship game."
High school football used to be something that was played in the fall with some off-season weight lifting. Now days, players prep all year long.
"To compete in the league we're in, you've got to work at year-around," Fair said.
Outside of the obvious physical benefits, Fair believes these workouts bring his players together as a team.
"When thing are tough and you are tired in the fourth quarter, you're going to look across the huddle and see the same guys that helped you make it through those hot summer workouts when you thought you couldn't go anymore."
Since Fair has been at Pillow, each summer the team has taken an overnight trip to Lake Tiak-O'khata in Louisville to promote team unity.
"It brings our guys closer together," he said.

Brookhaven head baseball coach Casey Edwards' post game interview after state tite game with Central Private

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MAIS BASEBALL

Jared Fiorito of Tunica Academy recently sign a baseball scholarship with Southwest Community College. Fiorito led the Blue Devils with 10 hr's and a .512 batting average. The senior also recorded 119 strikeouts with a 1.38 era on the mound. Shown with Fiorito is his parents, Rhonda and Artie Fiorito, and Tunica head coach Jimmy Hicks.