“Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind.”
Author David G. Allen’s quote exemplifies the year Salpointe Catholic — and other high school football teams — have experienced so far this fall.
Because of COVID-19, the Lancers were unable to have a normal offseason. Spring practice, summer workouts and 7-on-7 tournaments — the usual sequence of events to prepare teams for the upcoming season — were reimagined or canceled outright.
Salpointe Catholic’s roster, featuring first-year head coach Eric Rogers and significant roster turnover from last season’s star-studded Open Division squad, needed that time.
But patience has been a valuable learning tool, too.
“With this whole COVID thing, I had to learn to be patient,” said Lancers quarterback and Arizona Wildcats commit Treyson Bourguet. “On the field, when I’m in the pocket, I learned to be patient and step up, take a hit or do whatever I need to do to get the ball down field.”
Bourguet’s on-field patience can be a metaphor for what his team recently experienced. A Lancers player tested positive for the coronavirus following their season-opening win over Casa Grande on Oct. 2, which forced the team into a two-week quarantine. A game against Sierra Vista Buena was rescheduled for Friday.
Stuck at home, Salpointe Catholic reverted to its initial summer plan: Train virtually with in-home sessions set up by strength and conditioning coach Carla Garrett. The Lancers used the time away from the field to catch up on school work and catch their breaths.
But by no means did the team lose track of returning to the field.
“The kids handled it first-class,” Rogers said. “Us coaches and players, we literally just went back to our summer routine so it was a lot of Zoom meetings and watching Hudl film. … The kids handled it like champs.”
The last two weeks were viewed more like a bye — well, two of them — than a pause in the season.
At the same time, “we don’t take it for granted,” Rogers said.
“In a normal season, you only get 10 football games. It’s unlike any other sport,” he said. “We’re very limited with opportunities to perform on a Friday night, and we don’t take that for granted.
“I look at it as, ‘This is the card we were dealt and now we gotta deal with it.’ It’s a great life lesson in the long run. The last thing I want to do is not see our kids play, but at the same token, life isn’t always fair, so we’re going to prepare these kids for adversity in their lives no matter what happens. You got to find a way to grind and make it through, and we’ll come out on top in the end.”
The Lancers returned to practice on Monday, then held what Rogers called “the best three practices we’ve had all year.”
The Lancers will have to be error-free to outlast Buena, which enters Friday’s game with a 2-0 record.
“They’re a good football team, and we know that we have a challenge in front of us on Friday night. We have to come prepared and ready to play,” Rogers said. “They have incredible skill players between their quarterback, running back and receivers, and they’re very well-coached so we have a challenge in front of us.”
Salpointe Catholic is allowing Buena players to bring two spectators apiece, while the Lancers can have four socially distanced fans in attendance for every player.
“I’m excited because Buena is going to have some fans in the stands, and we’re going to have some people cheering against us,” Rogers said. “They’ll have people cheer when they make a big play and I’m excited for that. … You feed off the cheering. Football is an emotional game and you feed off the energy of the stadium.”
Fans of both teams in the stadium and football under the lights should make for a somewhat normal feeling in what has been an unusual and exhausting year.
