In the midst of battle, coaches can forget that they are coaching kids. During San Marcos’ bye week, the coaching staff has taken some time out of practice to enjoy moments with the family they’ve built over the season.
It’s been through competition the Rattlers have rekindled that feeling of being relaxed and not always having to focus on a game coming up. Offensive coordinator Lee Vallejo has been competing with the quarterback group every Wednesday in a game of football golf. An object is placed 30-40 yards down the field towards the sideline, as each player takes a turn seeing who can get closest to it or hit it.
Assistant football coach Mike Strunk caught his kids quoting a scene from “Facing the Giants.” The players in the movie were tested with what they call the “death crawl.” A player hangs on the back of another player, holding their shoulder pads as one player crawls as far as possible. San Marcos stole a page from the movie and the offensive linemen were challenged with that mission.
“The competitions we did, we were just trying to have fun with our kids. That's that's the biggest thing. We got a couple of them out there and see if we could crawl for five yards and just play with each other and have a good time just being around each other,” Strunk said. “You know, where they don't have to worry about the pressures of winning a ballgame.”
Some Rattlers got the chance to do something out of the ordinary: take punts. Junior outside linebacker Nicholas Jones stole the show by catching a ball, putting it in his pants and then catching another. Those moments are the things that make bye weeks important in Strunk’s eyes.
“If a kid doesn't feel like his coach wants to just compete with him or play with him or just have general fun with him, you know, that relationship is a one-sided relationship and it's hard to call it a relationship,” Strunk said. “You know, it's more of a commanding thing, but I think we have a really good presence (with the kids) on our staff of guys.”
For Walsh and the crew, their main focus is on the details this week in drills. The Rattlers have some nagging injuries and the bye week gives them time to get back to 100%.
“It’s all about rest and recovery for us, and truly getting back to basic fundamental drilling,” Walsh said. “We cut way back until Thursday, and we will treat that like Monday’s practice for next week, since we play on Thursday.”
The next time we see San Marcos (1-6, 0-5 district) in action will be Nov. 19 on the road inside Burger Stadium against Austin Bowie (2-3, 2-2) at 7:30 p.m. The Rattlers are still chasing their first victory in district play and have the chance to play spoiler as Bowie sits one game out of fourth place in District 26-6A.
“They deserve to be victorious, finish on a high note, finish on the win streak, and that's the goal every week from here on out,” Strunk said. “Ultimately, it's for us to put them in a position so they can be successful.”
