The term "off-season" is something of a misnomer. There's not much of an off-season in this era of specialization, especially when it comes to Rams football.
The first phase of the Rams' nearly breathless "off-season" football schedule has just concluded. Returning and prospective players participated in a 10-day all-are-welcome spring practice—no players were cut, but as in past seasons, some of the prospective players cut themselves, having decided that football wasn't for them.
The spring practice concluded with a"seven-on-seven" intra-squad game, in the spirit of the scrimmages once played in sandlots where the defense counted "One Mississippi, two Mississippi...," before they could rush the passer. In "seven-on-seven" the offense passes on every down, with four seconds to get the ball off, but there's no pass blocking allowed, no tackling (it's way too early for the coaches to risk injuries). A fingertip touch ends a play.
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Then, in the annual spring game, The Will Be's (a.k.a. the 2010 hopefuls) went up against The Has Beens (the alumni).
And now, for The Will Be's, the tempo really picks up.
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On June 24, Coach Lou Marinelli and 70 players will head for College Park, MD for some college-level scrutiny. As coaches at Boston College and most recently, Troy University in Alabama have done in years past, University of Maryland coaches will supervise a three-day camp where visiting coaches from a number of schools will be looking for potential recruits.
Then it's on to another round of college coaching with spread offense camp at home June 30 to July 1, with individual instruction for each position; the Rams coaches get time to learn from the specialists too.
More scrimmages await.
On July 10, the Rams will host a "seven-on-seven" camp—an all-day affair involving over 20 teams.
Then the Rams go to Stony Brook University for a similar camp there where 60 teams scheduled to play.
Next, the boys hit the weight room with weight training at NCHS four times a week—6:15 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. Tuesday through Friday.
Not till August, when the team gets the first two weeks off, do things slow down. Marinelli calls it family time.
But the end of the off-season is just the calm before the storm. When school opens a few weeks later, it's tryout time. The pads go on and the scrimmaging intensifies as the Rams get ready to defend their Turkey Bowl, FCIAC and state championships.
