Experience, team makeup dictates start of season for Portagers

ONEKAMA — The first day of practice isn’t the same for every player.

Sure, they each do the same drills, hustle during the same sprints, and walk through the same plays. But, varying levels of experience can make Day 1 either a nice review, or a collision course of new material.

Such was the case in Onekama on Monday.

“What you do today is really dictated on what you have,” Portagers head coach Jim Hunter said after his team’s first practice. “And this year, it looks like we have a really big mix.

“We’ve got some kids — like our seniors — who have come up through the program. Since middle school, they’ve done it now for six years. For them, this first day might feel pretty slow. But then we’ve got some freshmen, and even some first-year sophomores and juniors, where maybe after today, their heads are spinning.”

But the goal of Day 1, has always been to straighten that learning curve by Game 1.

“The nice thing is our offense is pretty simple, and tonight we put in about a third of it,” Hunter said. “It’s option football. You’ve got to dive, you’ve got to keep, you’ve got to pitch.

“It’ll be a while before it becomes automatic, but the kids are OK right now as long as we’re right there with them. We’ll get all that stuff in. Hopefully, by the end of the week we’ll have 70 percent of our stuff in, come scrimmage time we’ll be 80, 90, and by the first game, you better be at 100.”