The Siloam Springs football team will be a bit short-handed -- not only from a players standpoint but also coaches -- when spring football starts Monday.
High school football teams in Arkansas are allowed 10 practices in pads, but teams are no longer allowed to have those pad practices on back-to-back days, as mandated by the Arkansas Activities Association. Siloam Springs will practice in pads from 3 to 5 p.m. at Panther Stadium on Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week and next week -- May 1, May 3 and May 5.
The Panthers, who are coming off a 1-9 season in 2016, will practice Monday, May 8, and Wednesday, May 10, before taking off May 11-13 for the Class 6A State Soccer Tournament, which will be held at Panther Stadium.
The final practice will be May 15 with the Spring Game scheduled for May 19 at 6:30 p.m. at Panther Stadium.
"It used to be we could wait until the last two weeks of school basically (to have spring practice) and have pretty much everyone there," said Bryan Ross, who is entering his ninth season as head coach. "Now with the rules you can't go in pads two days in a row. You have to space it out more. Now it basically takes a month to get your 10 workouts in."
Ross said the team will lift weights and do some non-pads football work on the other days they're not scheduled to practice in pads.
"We can't go back-to-back days, so what we'll do is we'll continue lifting, just like we've been doing," Ross said. "On the days we're practicing in pads, obviously we'll go out a little after 3. We're going to try and wait on some of our freshmen who have class last period to try and get down here. Then on the days that we're not in pads, we'll continue to lift, but we'll also go out and probably use 30 minutes of the period to get more football work in. You just can't use pads."
The Panthers will be missing several players who are still playing spring sports -- baseball, soccer and track -- for at least the first two weeks and some possibly well beyond that, depending on how far those seasons go.
"That hurts some, but it just gives other people more reps," Ross said. "A lot of those kids we know what they can do already. I don't think you can spend time worrying about who's not going to be here. You just understand that's the way it is. Everybody's in the same boat. It'd be different if everybody else had all their players. That's just the way spring is. You look forward to seeing what the younger kids can do and trying to get everybody together and just get after it a little bit. That's the best thing, is it gives you a preview."
The Panthers will also be missing some of their coaches, including defensive coordinator Marc Jones.
Jones, a 30-year coaching veteran, has been out since early March after he suffered a stroke. He's been at a facility in Northwest Arkansas until recently when he moved down to a facility in Benton, where he coached for 10 years.
"It's just a slow process," Ross said. "He's making improvements. I know that he's tough enough and stubborn enough that he'll get back. It's just a matter of when."
Ross said defensive line coach Jeff Bowerman will take over the defensive coordinator responsibilities in Jones' absence.
"For right now, Coach Bowerman is our D.C. and I've got all the faith in the world in him," Ross said.
Running backs and tight ends coach Dwain Pippin has volunteered to return to coaching defensive line for the spring, Ross said. Pippin was defensive line coach for several years previously. Ross, who coaches quarterbacks and is offensive coordinator, will also coach the tight ends and running backs.
Ross added that assistant coaches Henry Janes (track and field) and Houston Pruitt (softball) won't be able to join football full time until those sports are completed.
"We'll make it work," Ross said.
Ross said the Panthers have had a good offseason, which has included some changes in their weight-lifting program.
"One thing I've learned about Siloam is our kids are going to work, and they're going to work hard," Ross said. "I really can't think of a bad offseason that we've had. I think this time we made a few adjustments in some of the lifting that we've done. We'll see if it pays off. I think it will.
"We incorporated some fast-bar lifts, trying to build some explosiveness. We did some research on that. We also did a new workout program that's been around a few years now. It was put together by a guy that was at the University of Minnesota, by Cal Deitz, it's called 'Triphasic Training.' It's a program in which you train the three phases of muscle movement. We've tried to incorporate some of that. I think it's beneficial. Whatever you do, you've got to work hard at it, and our kids do, so hopefully it makes us better football players."
Sports on 04/23/2017