Wednesday was the first day of high school football fall practice, and it felt a little weird.
For starters, the Aug. 21 start date is later than in past seasons, with the first Friday night of games slated for Sept. 6.
Secondly, cloudy skies and mild temperatures felt more like midseason practice conditions than the first one of the season.
But no where did the first practice feel odder than at Seton Catholic High School.
Wednesday was the first day of school in the 2024-25 school year for the Cougars.
“It was kind of like a game day,” Seton senior Joe Callerame said. “I mean, not exactly like a game day, but we did have that feeling of anticipation going to classes. We were just waiting for (practice) all day.”
Senior Jacob Williams added: “Everybody was really excited for (practice). We were talking about it the whole day. We were just anxious to get out on the field.”
The Cougars hit the practice after school Wednesday afternoon. Many other programs also took advantage of the cooler-than-normal temperature to hold afternoon practices on Wednesday.
That suited King’s Way Christian coach Dale Rule just fine. Being able to forgo early-morning practices makes it easier for his players to get to practice.
“What I’ve learned is you have to do things differently at a private school,” said Rule, who is started his second season as the Knights’ coach. “I coached at a public school for 34 years (before coming to King’s Way). You know, when I was at Camas, I could make some phone calls and have 50 kids show up in an hour. But (at King’s Way), I’ve got kids who live east of Washougal and I have a kid from Castle Rock. If I called them up, it might take a couple of hours for them to show up. So we’ll just go later in the day and go a little longer.”
Wednesday was also the fall debut of new head coaches for several area programs — Junior Miller at Prairie, Adam Mathieson at Camas, Sean McDonald at Mountain View, Glen Flanagan of Woodland, Will Ephraim at Fort Vancouver, Mike Peck at Mark Morris and Steve Pyne at Union.
Pyne started his first fall camp at Union by taking his players to Camp Rilea in Warrenton, Ore., for a few days of practices and team bonding.
John Lambert at La Center got his practices started at 8 a.m. Wednesday, opening fall camp with traditional two-a-day practices.
“We’re just trying to take advantage of the time we have before school starts (next Tuesday),” Lambert said.
Seton coach Dan Chase had no such option.
“That’s one of our biggest challenges — trying to make the most of the preseason practices,” Chase said. “It’s something I have never experienced before. It’s a full day. Our first full day of school is the first full day of football practice.”
Whatever the circumstances, the Seton Catholic players were just excited to be back on the practice field and get the season started.
“I’m just looking forward to having fun with my brothers out here,” Callerame said. “I’ll be playing my last year of high school football. We just want to win games one game at a time and hopefully make it a memorable season.
The Cougars are coming off a memorable season in 2023 that ended with the school’s first trip to the state semifinals.
Williams wants to take this season one step farther.
“I’d say it’s ring time for us; it’s ring time,” Williams said. “We’re ready. I think we’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”
