Football Practices Begin, With Distancing a Focus

Football’s back.

The first official football practice of the new school year was Monday, and La Grange head coach Matt Kates said about 90 high school football players reported for workouts, a little down from previous years, but not unexpected because of a small freshman class.

Kates said he expects a few more players to trickle in over the next few days, but “everybody we were expecting to rely on Friday nights” had reported to practice, including all the returning letter winners.

Kates said that, because of pandemic precautions, during workouts he is keeping extra distance between players and having players wear masks when distancing isn’t possible.

All the coaches are wearing masks.

The pandemic is having other impacts too.

The annual Popsicle Bowl instrasquad game, always held the Saturday of the first week of practice, has been turned into just a Saturday morning workout on the practice field beginning at 9 a.m.

The public can watch practices including Saturday’s from their cars, but the first contest inside Leopard Stadium will be the Aug. 21 scrimmage here against Yoakum. The varsity will play about 7 p.m. (after the freshmen and JV) that night and Kates said that event may be open to spectators, pending school administration approval. That will be the team’s only preseason scrimmage. In a normal year team’s have two scrimmages.

The Leps’ season opener is set for Aug. 28 at Rockdale.