VALDOSTA —
The Valdosta Wildcats wrapped up their preseason football camp on Saturday morning.
The Wildcats had six practices during their four-day camp, the maximum number of practices allowed in a four-day span under the Georgia High School Association’s new rules. They spent all day at the school, and at night, they slept on mattresses in the school gymnasium, a tradition that dates back to the days of legendary former coach Nick Hyder.
Valdosta’s current coach believes the Wildcats got a lot done over the four days.
“It’s gone good,” VHS head coach Rance Gillespie said. “We have made a commitment to keep it as much like a camp as we possibly can. We’re still practicing at 6 in the morning (when we’ve had) two-a-days, we’re practicing at 6:30 at night (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday).”
“I still believe in camp. I still believe it’s (good for our team),” he added. “I think it’s important for a lot of things outside of just football. From the team-building, from the family building, from the bonding that these kids do during that week, it’s very, very valuable.”
Overall, Gillespie has been pleased with what he has seen from his players throughout their first four days in full pads.
“For the most part, we’ve had a good pace through camp. We’ve worked hard through camp. That’s encouraging. And that’s going to make us better,” he said.
While they did not practice as much as they did before the GHSA passed its new practice rules, the Wildcats’ days were still quite busy during camp.
On Wednesday and Friday, the Wildcats practiced from 6:30-9 a.m. After their morning practice, they had a snack and what Gillespie called a “character talk.” After lunch, the players had meetings with their position coaches, then had a walk-through in the middle of the afternoon. Dinner was at 5 p.m., then Valdosta held its evening practice from 6:30-9 p.m. About 10:30 or 11 p.m., the players went to bed and the coaches watched film from practice.
On Thursday, the team was only allowed to practice once, so there was no morning practice. Instead, the coaches let the players sleep until 8 a.m. After breakfast, the team headed to Moody Air Force Base for a team-building activity.
“We appreciate the base for allowing us to do that,” Gillespie said. “It was good for our kids to get to be together outside of football, and for the coaches to actually go and play with them. ... That was good from a lot of different perspectives.”
Valdosta now has less than two weeks to practice before their preseason scrimmage against Ware County on Aug. 17 in Waycross.
“Two weeks. That’s it,” Gillespie said.
The Wildcats still have almost four weeks until their regular season opener on Sept. 1 against North Augusta (S.C.) at North Gwinnett High School in Suwanee.
“I really like (having that much time),” Gillespie said. “It’s hard to get your team where they need to be before that first game, or before that scrimmage. But by scrimmaging early, it does give you about two weeks to fix anything that needs to be fixed before the first true ball game.”
The Wildcats will practice twice on Monday and once on Tuesday. Then school begins on Wednesday, and the team will start practicing after school.
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Related Photos
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Valdosta’s Yardley Payne (14) returns a punt during a practice last week. Christian Malone | The Valdosta Daily Times
Discussion
Wildcats wrap up camp on Saturday
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