Hite: Time to Strap on the Pads
For Centreville's Luke Bowanko, putting on the pads for the first time and starting to hit again is the best time of year.
Photo By: Justin Hite/ Gameday Magazine
It comes with metal buckles and leather straps. Plastic covers and cushioned padding. And when shoulders pads are finally locked in, high school football training camp begins.
"I've been waiting for this all summer," Centreville offensive lineman Luke Bowanko said.
Monday evening at Centreville High School was the team's first full scrimmage and may have marked the true start of training camp. After a short stint in mesh shirts and athletic shorts, the skill of the exterior players finally takes a back seat to the raw power of the linemen.
"That's a long week, you are really not in football shape yet and the coaches know it," Centreville tight end Zack Glatter said.
With the wide receivers and quarterbacks perfecting their timing and the defensive secondary still working on their drop backs, the dogs were held at bay. Those dogs - usually weighing in at more than 250 pounds - have been let loose and are looking for contact.
"They get to run around us for a little bit and on the stretch plays they get to run around and talk a little smack," Bowanko said. "Now they are on their backs a little more, we get to shut them up a little bit and it's fun."
The Centreville team has four big seniors up front, which have been playing together since youth league, and won't have the delay in gaining cohesiveness. The one thing that the linemen are just now remembering is the comforting pain that goes along with mashing massive bodies together.
"We're knocking heads a little bit and got a little headache," Bowanko said. "But it's all good, it brings back that feeling."
Glatter finds himself in a different position than all others as the pads are finally put on and has to find a balance. As a tight end, he spent the first week of camp showing off his agility and finesse, but now with his shoulders mounted with padding has to show his strength and might.
"It's hard being a tight end; you have to have both mindsets," Glatter said. "You have to be that skill player that wants to catch the ball and make people miss but you also have to be that lineman that's going to break some people."
Finally strapping on the pads makes the realization complete.
"Once you get the pads on you have to have a different mindset," Glatter said. "I'm a skill player but you have to punish people."
A substitute Christmas may have come in early August, but soon enough the butterflies may be replaced by a churning feeling.
"[The linemen] enjoy it but then about a week later when they've been banging each other twice a day for a while then they are like, 'hell we have to do it again,' " Centreville head coach Gerry Pannoni said.
