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Fallbrook football coach is excited to have a start date

When the CIF San Diego Section released its sports calendar for the 2020-2021 sports year, the countdown clock began ticking for Troy Everhart, head football coach of Fallbrook High School.

Entering his second season at the helm for the Warriors, Everhart will coach a team dealing with adversity.

Everhart, who came to the program with 14 years of head coaching experience in the state of Ohio, met for the first time in summer 2019 with assistant coaches and program stakeholders, July 23, one month shy of the team's first game.

He took over the program from Jim Fisher, also a recent new hire, who resigned from the position earlier that month.

It was a tough start for the Warriors and Everhart with a program plagued by low athlete turnout and instability. Compounding the uncertainty of the season to come, the school itself had a new school principal and district superintendent.

All of those things factored into a winless season for the varsity Warriors.

But despite struggling all season long, Everhart kept his eye on the prize, an offseason of weight training, student-athlete building and the installation of a system he spent years developing in Ohio.

Then, when spring football training was ready to begin, COVID-19 hit and shut it all down.

Since then, athletes have been training individually, sometimes in small groups, and studying the playbook.

What hasn't really happened is an official, real-deal football practice.

Barring any further setbacks with virus transmission numbers, football will be back and the Warriors should play their first game Jan. 8, 2021.

The California Interscholastic Federation San Diego Section released the master calendar for the 2020-2021 seasons, as well as the temporary adjustments to state and section bylaws 600-605 by the board of managers, Friday, Aug.14.

As it stands at press time, CIFSDS will follow the guidelines set forth by the statewide California Interscholastic Federation announced July 20 indicating that the three sports seasons will be condensed into two with sports-related activities for the fall season starting Dec. 12 and the spring sports season starting March 13.

Everhart said he can't wait.

"The kids have been working, and they're excited just to have an opportunity to play this calendar's school year," Everhart said. "I think it's important for the kids, you know, I think what's been lost and you see it right now, especially with so many of the college kids and parents petitioning to find out why their kids can't play. Why they can't play with an opportunity to do the thing that they love to do. At least from our standpoint, I'm happy that we're going to give those kids an opportunity to play at least this year."

Everhart said he's been on a few Zoom calls with other coaches in the North County Conference and with commissioners, while they navigated the COVID-19 landscape.

"I give my input when I asked like everybody else," he said. "I said all along as long as it's equal, everybody's allowed to start at the same time, I'm good. Just give us time to prep. My only concern has always been, some of these guys were like, 'I can get my team ready in two months or two weeks.' Excuse me, but there's no way physically."

The coach said he is not concerned with getting the team ready to play physically when official practices begin Dec. 12, but he is worried about how that will affect players like the team's sophomores and juniors, who, if the following season starts on time, will be playing a lot of games in a calendar year.

"The thing that I'm most concerned about is the longterm effect of playing," Everhart said. "We're going to play January through March and for some teams, they're going to play into it into that last week of March, first week of April.

"I'm a 16-year-old kid. I'm going to play 20 football games in a calendar year. That's not something that I think we should take lightly. When you talk about all the things that really can happen to a young man, that's the thing that I'm most concerned with some of these guys. Don't overdo it.

"I'm just simply saying that all of us are going to have to do a really good job of monitoring our kids, not just for this, winter 2020-2021 season, but for the fall 2021 season. That means we've just got to be smart," Everhart said.

It will be a tight window for training and every second on the football field will count for the Warriors, who again, find themselves playing catch up. Everhart said student-athletes who traditionally play a winter sport will already know what it's like to stick around during the Christmas season to continue practicing, which will happen, but they won't be practicing on Christmas Day.

"Our biggest thing is, 'Hey, they've got a calendar now that's out, we're moving,'" Everhart said. "It's great being around them. It's great. The Warriors are going to be ready, man. I'm excited for them. I love my seniors. They've been through so much, and this is just one thing they fought through and now give them a chance to get out there and play football one last time together."

Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].

 

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