The Ballenas Whalers senior and junior football teams have already been training, getting ready for the season when school opens in September.
Head coach Dan Smith who is a strong advocate of off-season training had the players go through spring training in June with members of the Oceanside Youth Football. After a month off in July, they resumed training again and were in full-gear last week for the first time although they had to practice their plays and hone their skills indoor for a couple of days due to the hazy and smokey conditions outdoor.
“With the weather the way it is, we didn’t want the kids running around in this stuff so we arranged to work out in the school,” said Smith. “We used the multi-purpose room and the gym. We adjusted our practices to be able to do the things we can do in a confined space.”
Smith said they focussed on techniques and skills. The training camp also serves as an orientation for new players joining the team this coming season. Some are from Oceanside Youth Football and some are new to the area.
Training is being conducted Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and will remain that way until the start of the regular season.
This week the Whalers will host Belmont Secondary, a triple A school, but the event will be held at the Merle Logan Field in Nanaimo due to the work being done on the Ballenas field. The Whalers are a double A team.
Prior to that, the Whalers will have some team bonding when they go camping at Horne Lake on Wednesday. The next day they will have a joint practice with Belmont today from 11 to 2 p.m.
“That’s going to allow our kids to compete with other kids,” said Smith. “Belmont has been really good to work with. They are triple A which means they’ve got more numbers than we do, with bigger kids a lot of times. But it’s good for us because the competition is really good.”
This coming season, Smith said, the number of players for the senior team is pretty good as they now have 25 to 28 players. The composition of the team is mainly made up of Grade 11 players.
“We’re going to be young but our Grade 11’s are talented,” said Smith. “The biggest challenge I have this year is helping our Grade 11’s understand they can’t play like Grade 11’s. You’re a senior football player now. If they can do that, we’ve got lots of talent.
“There’s some years I wonder if they can do that but this year I feel good about it because they are the kids that went to the BC Championships as juniors. So they’ve got a lot of self-confidence. I just hope they don’t take a back-seat to anybody.”
The juniors are young said Smith and their numbers are low, similar to last year’s team, which they are very concerned about.
“We have a lot talent in running backs, quarterback and receivers,” said Smith. “We now have got to find more linemen. We’v got to figure out our offensive line and defensive line situation which has been a bit of a challenge. This is the reason we are now working closer with Oceanside Youth Football to try to help recruit more kids playing football at a lower age so that they can get some football experience.”
Smith is hoping they will have more players join when the school begins.