What's Going On: Time to work on football

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July 23, 2012

What's Going On: Time to work on football

Chris Whitfield The Dalton Daily Citizen Mon Jul 23, 2012, 02:39 PM EDT

In surfing around and looking at the various local websites, the clock is ticking to the start of the high school football season.

Literally.

If you are a follower of the Friday night football fantastic-ness, then you are like me and have all of the local schools bookmarked on your computer’s internet service. Surfing around the other day, I came across the ticker counting down until Dalton’s scrimmage with Adairsville. In a little over three weeks, the Catamounts will take the field against Adairsville, and the excitement of the upcoming season is quite palpable.

All of the public schools located in Whitfield County will be in the same sub-region this year, which means that the Cats and Northwest Whitfield will renew their rivalry in a game that counts. For the last two years, the two teams have faced each other in preseason scrimmages. Now, it means something for real again.

Teams can take to the field starting on Wednesday for “official” practices, but only in shorts and helmets. The period of conditioning is part of the Georgia High School Association’s new preseason practice regulations. While some school systems have had heat policies in the past, the GHSA has finally mandated statewide guidelines for conditioning and heat control. All schools will be under a new heat and humidity policy, and there are also stricter practicing guidelines in place this year.

Anyone who has put on the pads can tell you stories of “camp” from their prep gridiron days. In my case, camp consisted of staying in cabins on the campus of the school I went to with three practices a day — full pads for practices in the morning and evening and a helmet-and-shoulder-pads special teams and conditioning practice right before a late lunch. This went on for four straight days with a full morning practice on Friday followed by a full-pad scrimmage during that midday period.

Now, those times are gone. Full-pad practices are now regulated so that they can be no longer than three hours, two practices in the same day cannot last longer than five hours, there must be at least three hours between sessions, and you can’t have two-a-day practices on consecutive days.

These changes come after two high school football players died last year during the preseason. Schools found in violation of the new rules will be fined $1,000 for each violation.

Here is a look at what else is going on this week:

• Two local golfers — Rocky Face’s Will Snipes and Chatsworth’s Chase Jones — will competed in a 36-hole United States Golf Association U.S. Amateur Qualifier beginning on Tuesday at Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta.

Snipes, a senior at Vanderbilt, and Jones, a senior at North Murray High, are both vying for one of six qualifying spots and two alternated for the Amateur to be played later this summer in Cherry Hills Village, Colo. More than 140 golfers will be competing for the chance to play in the tournament Aug. 13 to 19.

• Landon Hicks of Dalton and Savannah Satterfield of Chatsworth will be competing in the Georgia State Golf Association’s 39th Annual GSGA Junior Sectional Challenge Matches today and tomorrow at Valdosta Country Club in south Georgia.

Both are on the Northwest team with Hicks teeing off at 9 a.m. this morning in the boys 14 to 15 division. Hick will play 18 holes each day. Satterfield is competing in the 11-under girls division and is playing nine holes each day.

Chris Whitfield is a sports writer for The Daily Citizen. Got something that should be highlighted in What’s Going On? Contact him at chriswhitfield@daltoncitizen.com.

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