Off-season Brings No Rest For Chargers’ Football Boys
By Jack Danilewicz
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The “basketball on grass” mentality that has changed football over the past decade requires yet another ingredient to make it all work: conditioning.
As with most of its OIA rivals on the football field, Pearl City High is hard at work getting into premium shape for the 2010 season, which begins with preseason games in mid-August. The Chargers work out four days a week, taking Fridays off. For players not involved in a spring sport, these are the dog days of their football experience, where they push weights around the facility and run sprints. Unlike in-season, there’s no game to prepare for on Friday night.
Second-year coach Kai Kamaka admitted that a productive off-season is exactly what the Chargers need to better last year’s 3-5 season.
They were 3-3 heading into the last two weeks of the OIA West White schedule before losses to Kalaheo and Kaiser undermined some of their upward mobility. A win over neighboring Aiea in September highlighted the season.
“Looking back, we progressed a lot quicker than I thought we would,” Kamaka said.“Being one game out of the playoffs and still able to put our name in the (post-season) hat shocked a lot of people.”
Kamaka has welcomed 70 players a day on average during workouts with another 43 projected players involved in spring sports at the school.
“It’s kind of culture shock when you come off the couch after five months,” said Kamaka, himself a former Campbell High standout. “It’s why we try to encourage our kids to play a spring sport - it’s one of the goals of our program. It keeps them academically inclined and actually helps with their gpa. There’s no time left to get into trouble.”
Pearl City’s grade-monitoring is more stringent than many schools, according to Kamaka. “There’s a grade check every two weeks, so we’re a little harder in that sense.”
Like many teams, Pearl City runs the spread these days, and Kamaka reiterated that the scheme “fits us perfect,” because they typically don’t have as many big kids as other nearby schools,in part because of smaller enrollment.
“The spread beats trying to run through 11 guys. I think we were the smallest team last year, but we’re normally quick with so many soccer and baseball kids joining us (after the spring).
“Football was a more rock-and-sock-em game before. Now, it’s more finesse. The kids are bigger and quicker than when we were playing.
It makes the game pick up quicker, too, playing a runand-gun set. We’re not a big team physically, but we’re a quick team. I’d say the technique aspect and philosophy and terms of football have changed the most.”
The return to contact drills will come at the end of May when they are allowed by the OIA to hold 10 spring practices in a 14-day period, the last days of which they can compete fully equipped. Until now, it’s more drudge work in the weight room.
“Off-season is huge for us,“Kamaka added.“It gets our bodies in tone, instead of lagging in the beginning (of spring ball and early summer workouts). It’s a huge part of what we do as far as getting the kids ready physically.”
The Chargers figure to be challenged well before they open their season. On Aug. 5, they host Waianae in its first public scrimmage. Two days later, they play a road scrimmage at Radford. The Chargers’ preseason game is Aug. 15 at Kapolei. Kamaka announced that the Purple-White spring game will be played May 25.
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