Tigers bond under bubble; prepare for football season

HAMPDEN – Mountain climbs, island retreats, and visits to summer camps.

All have served as backdrops for the bonding experience that are the double and triple sessions of the first week of football practice.

In that spirit, you can call the Rockland District High School Tigers the bubble boys.

Head coach Daryle Weiss and his team broke camp late Thursday afternoon after spending their first three days of practices at the Maine Sports Complex, a fabric dome with an artificial turf.

During the day, the team participated in triple sessions in preparation for this weekend’s first preseason scrimmage against Belfast. The team practiced indoors, out of the direct sunlight, but in still, heavy air that lended itself to accelerating the team conditioning process.

“It was definitely better than being baked by the sun,” said senior quarterback and captain Frank Pavalkis.

During the evening, there was plenty of football talk in the 25 or so tents where the players and coaching staff resided in a field next to the dome.

“There wasn’t a lot of down time, but the big thing was that it was a total team effort, from setting up camp to taking it down and cleaning up everything,” said Weiss.

“We did this mostly to come together as a team,” added senior tailback and tri-captain Trevor Davis. “When you practice at home, you practice and then go home and go out with your friends. Here we’re with each other all the time, experiencing all the same things.”

Rockland returns a veteran team to the gridiron this year in its effort to improve on last year’s 3-6 finish. But there’s always a new class of freshmen to acclimate to the ways of high school football, a process made easier by the isolation of a football retreat.

“We became more confident in each other,” said senior tackle and tri-captain Brian Athearn. “Even the freshmen aren’t afraid to ask questions now. I know with the line calls, the younger players aren’t afraid to ask something if they don’t know it yet, and generally we all have developed more trust in each other by being together like this.”

“We’ve definitely become more comfortable with each other as people as well as football players, added Pavalkis, who is nursing a knee injury but expects to be ready for the team’s Sept. 5 season opener against Stearns of Millinocket.

“We’ve gotten a chance to know each other that we wouldn’t have had if we had just done this at home.”

Developing such camaraderie is important to all teams, particularly one seeking a return to post-season play after years on the outside

“The No. 1 thing we wanted to come out of this experience with is not so much offense and defense, it has more to do with the kids being together and coming together as a group,” said Weiss.

“You take the freshmen. They haven’t stepped into the high school yet or taken their first class, but they already have 35 or 40 friends looking out for them. And with the seniors, it helps them in terms of providing leadership.”

Weiss got the idea for a pre-season retreat from a coach he worked with in New Jersey before coming to Maine and taking the Rockland job in 2001.

“This will be an annual event,” he said.