By Robert Perea
With the official beginning of practice fast approaching on August 1 and the first game of the season close behind August 13, the Fernley High School football team is already in high gear.
The Vaqueros hosted their annual football camp June 23-25 conducted by Eastern Oregon University head coach Tim Camp and his staff and are now holding summer workouts leading up to the beginning of practice.
And for the first time in his four years as head coach, Anfernee Sloan has more returning seniors than underclassmen. Most of those seniors are also in their third or fourth year on varsity, giving Sloan the type of veteran group that he’s never had as a head coach.
“The last three years, we graduated on average about 13 to 14 seniors,” Sloan said. “Last year, I carried 39 guys on the roster, the biggest roster I’ve carried, and I graduated eight seniors. This year, I’ve got over 20 seniors.”
The Vaqueros had almost 70 players participating in this year’s camp, and have averaged about 80 during their offseason workouts and weightlifting program. Sloan expects to have close to 100 by the time practice starts.
Because last year’s JV team was made up of mostly freshmen, Sloan also expects to have an experienced JV team with enough players that the Vaqueros will have a freshman team this fall. With so many players in the program returning, Sloan said the camp showed him that the Vaqueros are farther along than they have been at any time during his tenure.
“Initially, I thought we might have to kind of revert back to step 8 to kind of just refresh, but I think we might be on step C,” he said. :I think we might be a little bit further ahead than what we kind of thought we were mentally, which is a really good thing, which means we can play faster, we can get more done.”
For the last three years, opposing coaches have consistently told Sloan that his team has a chance to be pretty good when his freshmen and sophomores become juniors and seniors, and now most of them are, Sloan said he’s excited to see what they can do.
“I do think we got a really good football team this year next year, and not even just football team, varsity-wise, but football program, from the top to the bottom,” Sloan said. “It just makes it a really competitive atmosphere.”
Because Camp and his staff focus on teaching fundamental skills, Sloan said his focus in this year’s camp was to get more work for the younger players.
“I've been telling the coaches, I'm not going to put much stress on the older guys, because it's like, what do they need to prove to me?” Sloan said. “I know those guys can play football.”
Like his seniors, Sloan also feels like he has grown as a coach entering his fourth year.
“I'm just so much more relaxed,” Sloan said. “My second year, I thought I had all the answers, you know? I learned my lesson that year, and my third year, I reflected on year one and two. It's like, I don't have to sit here and reinvent the wheel now, you know? It's just, we're there.”
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