High school football, other fall sports begin practice

Football teams will not need to wait long for Week 1. The regular season begins Aug. 18, with most teams opening Aug. 22.

Centerville, fresh off a look in the Division I specify semifinals, is intending to make another deep postseason run in football this fall. The program is set up to begin the season with its annual Midnight Hits, a community occasion that includes all levels of play from pee wee to high school.The Elks have a new coach in John Puckett, who worked as an assistant coach under Brent Ullery and previously acted as the head coach at Vandalia Butler.”I have actually been a head coach before; nevertheless, it’s an entirely different animal,” Puckett stated.”There’s a lot of things that go through my head: A. that you don’t think about as an assistant and B. and things at other programs you don’t think of. We have so many things going on at the same time with fundraising, social work and players playing other sports, whether it’s track, lacrosse or baseball. It’s been a whirlwind, but it’s been a lot of fun.”Although football practice doesn’t officially start

till Friday, teams are permitted to satisfy required acclimation days in order to use full pads on the first day of practice.”Early on (in his training career) you had that excitement leading up to the

first day, “Puckett said.”The last 10 years it seems like when we get to the very first day it’s just another day. There isn’t really that develop and that’s why it’s pretty cool that we’re able to do Midnight Strikes on basically the first day of practice. It brings an air of excitement which’s pretty cool. “