This is the first day for Tennessee high school football players to begin practicing in pads, but it also signals the beginning of teacher in-service for public schools.
As a result, many coaches reluctantly have shelved the time-honored policy of practicing twice a day in pads. Instead, they’ll begin practices in mid-afternoon when they’ve completed classroom preparations.
“It’s going to be interesting,” Red Bank coach Tim Daniels said. “The way the calendar falls, I don’t know if it’s something that changes in the future.”
Daniels has never begun a football season without two-a-days in pads.
“My concern is the time we have to get players acclimated to the heat with all the equipment on,” he said. “It isn’t so much the beatdown from contact but from a combination of the heat and the pads.”