Sun Rises on 2009 Season

The Christ Preparatory Academy Patriot football team launched its 2009 season this morning at 6:30 a.m. under the backdrop of a beautiful Overland Park, Kansas sunrise. Approximately 41 young men participated in the morning session. Practice started with light jogging and stretching but the coaching staff wasted no time in proceeding to intense conditioning which culminated in “Dirty Thirties,” a series of thirty, 30-yard dashes designed to prepare the athletes to endure the rigors of four quarters of football. After completing the sprints, Coach Dick Burton exclaimed to the team: “You guys have done something no other Patriot football team before you has done.” Later Coach Burton explained that he usually starts the season out with fifteen 30-yard dashes but changed his mind after the team’s seniors approached him and requested that the team not ramp up from 15 to 30 30-yard dashes, but instead fast-forward immediately to mid-season expectations. “The seniors told me they wanted this team to be special, that they wanted to accomplish great things this year.” The team, after completing the required number of 30, wanted more. So they ran an additional two 30-yard dashes back-to-back and all together as a team (See photo below), instead of in groups of five as the others had been done. During the drill the young men were exhorted to “make their bodies their slaves,” a reference to I Corinthians 9:27.

Conditioning was followed by “County Fair,” a series of agility and technique drills performed in different small groups. The practice concluded with other basic and fundamental football drills, including proper huddling and offensive and defensive formations.

The Patriot football team will be back on the field this evening at 6:00 p.m. for its second practice of the day. Two-a-days will be held during the next two weeks at First Family Church in Overland Park. You are welcome and encouraged to attend practice and cheer these young men on in their efforts to glorify God through football.

The team completes its "Dirty Thirties"