Preparations for the 2009 football season for the Bryant Hornets get underway in earnest on Monday, Aug. 3, with the official start of fall practice.
The first three days, the team will practice in shorts. The session will go from 8:20 to 11:20 a.m., with 30 minutes of breaks built in, according to Paul Calley who's entering his seventh season as the Hornets head coach.[more]
Contact in pads will begin Thursday with a similar schedule. After taking off Saturday and Sunday, the team will return to practice in pads Monday. Morning practices will continue through Wednesday and will switch to afternoons 4 to 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday.
Saturday, Aug. 15, will be picture day beginning at 8 a.m. There will be a scrimmage involving the eighth and ninth grade teams then Calley and his coaches will host their "Football for Mommies" session from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (Call 501-847-2231 to make reservations to join in).
Afternoon practices will resume on Monday, Aug. 17, with school starting on Wednesday, Aug. 19.
A pre-season scrimmage will be held at Bryant against Pine Bluff on Monday, Aug. 24, at 6 p.m. The next night, the Bryant freshman team will scrimmage at Cabot North beginning at 5:30 p.m. The season for the Bryant JV will actually begin before the varsity. The JV will play at Pine Bluff on Monday, Aug. 31. The freshman team will open the season at home against Searcy on Thursday, Sept. 3, then the Salt Bowl renewing the rivalry between Bryant and Benton will kick off the high school varsity season at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock on Friday, Sept. 4.
"We've had a good summer," Calley stated.
At the start of fall workouts, he added, "We're going to review everything we did in the spring, stuff we know we're going to use. Then we're going to narrow it down the closer we get to Benton.
