[Panther1]

kids say they aren't playing this time of year... every year, so they don't have to spend the whole entire summer in the weightroom or going to football camp.

The REAL problem is that they think they have to spend "the whole entire summer in the weightroom." There are 168 hours in a summer week available for "being a kid." What percentage is 6-8 hours out of 168? (4%).

Then, consider that there's an entire DEAD PERIOD of TWO FULL WEEKS where there's NO requirement to work toward getting better.

When it comes to GAMEDAY however, those same kids unwilling to spend even 4% of their summers want a LOT more playing time than 4% of the game!

McAnallen got a job so he wouldn't have to lift,

His family required him to work after school. A LOT different than the reason a few weren't at weights after school.

Can't tell mom and dad they can't require their boy to work after school.

BUT, it should be mentioned as well that Houston lifted EVERY workout day in his PE class (that's 4 days a week from January to the end of school; and prior to March, he was in bball after school anyway).

Price and Gibson are just duds,

Those kids just have "higher priorities" than lifting after school's over. (Lucky for them, football in general and playing time specifically aren't very high priorities to them either.)

Harmon hides all summer so he doesn't have to lift.

Probably needed a physical and mental break after going from one sport to another to another while never choosing to take ANY amount of break in-between them. Understandable. Missing weights for a SCHOOL SPORT is much different than SAYING you're missing weights because of a school sport when many others in that same sport get to weights every day before they go to the other sport practice.

He's the kind of kid that won't complain if there are make-ups to do later for time missed in the summer.

Plus, he lifted year-round, 4-days a week (other than basketball game-days), in his PE class.

Look at Pikeville last season, Ritchie, Price, Staggs, and others didn't decide to play until after the hard stuff was over. So this year the same thing is happening.

Price was a transfer and thus could NOT do anything with the team until transfer papers came back from KHSAA. (Actually, he came to practice every day on his own and even did conditioning on his own off to the side until that point.) Didn't play in an actual game until about the 5th or 6th game of the season.

Staggs decided after Dead Period to play football at all. He was NOT a "varsity player" in games until 3rd or 4th game of season.

Ritchie chose to not to play initially, then realized he'd made a mistake after team had practiced for 3 weeks. He wasn't "just allowed to join" at that point. The team voted to allow him to join them, but restrictions were made that he must do extra work before and after each practice to make up time missed, there was make-up conditioning, and he was not allowed to dress for a game until as many games had been played as weeks he didn't practice.

Pikeville football will be fine....when everyone comes out after the summer is over when the fun part starts! The sad part is that Pikeville doesn't have enough athletes to just kick them off so they have to take them back and let them play!!

The Ritchie case above should prove to kids thinking they can "sit out until the fun part starts" that this is NOT the case. There will be extra work for them to do before and after practice, there will be extra conditioning, there will be games to sit out in street clothes. And even before that, their potential teammates would have to ALLOW them to join them -- if it's well-known that they're "trying just to get out of the hard stuff," I doubt they'd be allowed.