numbers for spring drills

By STEVEN G. WATSON

Sports Editor

Spring is in the air and with that the sound of cracking helmets and crunching shoulder pads seem to hang in the trees around most Alabama High Schools.

Charles Henderson High School isn’t any different. The Trojans have been on the field after school practicing and getting their spring reps in under the watchful eye of head coach Hugh Fountain.

The coach says that this is the most critical time for football in his book. The chance to get an early glimpse of what the upcoming season might hold.

"This is where it starts, but we’ve got a long way to go," Fountain said. "Spring is the most critical time in football to me. It’s very important because it gives you a chance to evaluate your talent. You can see how much stronger a kid is from the year before and see what you’ve got coming back.

"Every year we try to fit what we do to our talent," he continued. "Sometimes we have to change because of certain people that you have and that’s what you do in the spring."

So far there have been good days and bad days on the practice field Fountain said. He feels that there are a lot of things that the team will have to work on, but he has seen the team play good physical ball on certain days.

The thing that is itching the back of Trojans’ brains is last season. They want to make up for what they thought should have been a much better showing. That usually means getting back to the basics.

"We were disappointed in last season and we didn’t feel like we played up to what our capabilities were," Fountain said. "This spring we’re just trying go back and get better at the fundamentals – blocking, tackling and just being a tougher football team. If we can do that most everything else will fall into place."

Tomorrow the Trojans will have an intra-squad scrimmage at 4 p.m. after school. As the team finished up their practice Wednesday the coach told the team how important it was to play at the top of their game in game-like situations.

"For some of you, tomorrow will be a very important day if you’re looking for P.T. (playing time) next season," Fountain said to his huddled team. "Hustle and hard work in practice is always important, but what you do in game situations is what we will look most closely at."