Howland finally back to school ahead of 4th game
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Howland finds itself in a unique position on and off the football field.
The Tigers travel to Beloit tonight for their Eastern Buckeye Conference opener at West Branch as they try to capture their fourth win in as many games. But before that, Howland has to get through its fourth day of school.
Howland, which is trying to keep its best start since 2014 going, is one of the last districts to begin class, having done so on Tuesday, several weeks after many other local schools.
Minimizing the impact of the late start to the school year, plus the holiday to begin the week, has been a major point of emphasis for head coach Brian Jones and his staff.
"That's one of our biggest [things] that we always try to handle - that first week back to school," Jones said. "We try to limit a bad practice as much as we can that first day back to school.
"We talk about it with the team. We try to prep them for it. And I think they understand. Obviously, this year with kind of the early success, we can't let any external factors derail our focus from week to week. ... There's not a magic potion that we can do to get them to be great that first week."
Jones said that, fortunately for his team, the Tigers had good practices on both Tuesday and Wednesday, which may have been the result of some forethought.
Once Howland finished up preseason practice and its second scrimmage, Jones said the team immediately went from practicing in the mornings, a preference and sometimes a necessity to mitigate the effects of the summer weather, to the afternoon.
"We've been in our after-school schedule for four weeks now, so they know the time of day, the acclimation to the heat at 2:30 in the afternoon. We're used to it," Jones said. "We just needed to be able to handle getting up early, getting to school on time, getting to the locker room after school and just being able to handle that full load that comes when school starts."
The effects of a school day are not limited to the first week of class, Jones said. The fourth-year head coach said they remain a "concern" throughout the entire season as the student-athletes get deeper into the grading period.
Later in the season, however, the Tigers will not have to deal with the heat, which has surged in the past few weeks after milder weather to start the season.
"We try to put an emphasis on hydration during the week," Jones said. "We always talk to our team about, you need to hydrate Monday through Thursday. If you're trying to hydrate yourself on Thursday and Friday, it's too late. So we put an emphasis on that. We've had to make some changes due to the heat. We've taken some measures to get extra water breaks and maybe go helmets and shoulder pads as opposed to full pads. So we made little tweaks here and there to kind of adjust with the heat because I think you need to do that. It's the best-case scenario for your team. You need to do what's right for kids and keep them healthy."
Howland, which has matched its combined win total from the last three seasons through three weeks this year, will be on the road for the next two weeks - first against West Branch and then at Carrollton.
This comes after three consecutive home games to start the season, which, Jones said, only aided in rallying the community around the Tigers.
"I think anytime you win football games, there's going to be people that are excited, and that goes for everybody in the community - teachers, student body, and obviously the players," Jones said. "They come in with a little bit more confidence; things in the lunchroom are a lot better. ... And it's not just us; it goes for all the fall sports.
"When you win football games Friday night, there's a different feeling around the town, and that's great. But we have a lot of work. It's only three games. It's only 30% of the year. We got a lot of football in front of us. We need to just stay the course and keep getting better."