By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
As the dog days of summer continue, the local gridirons are full of action as high school football squads begin preparations for the upcoming fall season. In West Union there will be a noticeable change as the only varsity level coach the Dragons have seen for the last 10 years, Scott McFarland, has relinquished those duties but remains as the Director of West Union Football. McFarland will be replaced on the sidelines by Charles Webb, who has been an assistant with the program and guided a successful junior high program.
The Dragons’ varsity squad has been holding voluntary workouts for a couple of weeks and for three nights, July 18-20, Webb and his West Union staffers held a youth football camp that went over as quite successful, with over 40 aspiring Dragons on hand.
“This is the fifth or sixth time that we have held a youth camp,” said McFarland while Coach Webb was busy with camp instruction. “We usually hold the camp earlier int he summer but we decided this year to do it closer to the season. The turnout this week was great and our sign up numbers have been really strong for all age groups, which is always encouraging. We will have team in every age group.”
One of the issues the West Union coaches faced for their youth camp was stifling hot temperatures, though the camp was held from 6-7:30 each evening.
“The coaches have been doing a really good job of keeping these kids hydrated,” said McFarland. “It’s no different than when you are having practice, you have to play attention to kids and make sure they get frequent water breaks. If someone gets a little overheated, we’ll immediately get them cooled down.”
As mentioned, the West Union football camp drew over 40 campers for the three nights, as coaches and members of the high school program guided them through drills and fundamentals, preparing them for their futures with the Dragons program.
