If the atmosphere around town seems a little different, that’s because Homecoming season is upon us.
Plant City High School will be batting leadoff, holding their festivities this weekend, and both Durant and Strawberry Crest are scheduled to go next weekend. Rather than my usual Friday night notes, I’m going to take a look at each school and try to get a feel for their football teams’ traditions.
Or, in the case of the Raiders, I’ll be talking about what they don’t do.
This is the oldest team in the area by somewhere around 80 years, but mentioning “Homecoming traditions” to the coaches isn’t going to get you anywhere.
“Honestly, I’m kind of the wrong guy to talk to,” head coach Wayne Ward says, laughing.
Ward, who attended Plant City in the 1990s, says he always saw the Homecoming game as just another day at work. Sure, it’s big for the fans up in the bleachers. But, for the players — even the ones who are running for Homecoming Court — it’s another game on the schedule.
That’s just the way it’s always been, though. Ward doesn’t stress the importance of Homecoming so much as he stresses the importance of the game to be played, and this is something he picked up from his playing days under the wing of Todd Long.
“I’m not into Homecoming,” Ward says. “I didn’t go to the dance when I was in high school. The only thing I focused on was football. Once the game was over, I’m like, ‘OK, what’s next?’ I was getting ready for Brandon, or Manatee, or whoever we were playing.”
Long, according to Ward, wasn’t big on changing the routine for this one week. Tonight, there will be no special event or gesture that’s exclusive to football. The seniors will be picking out the team’s uniforms, but, if they’re superstitious enough, they may stick with whatever they’ve won in rather than break out the gray unis. As Durant’s athletic director, Long now oversees at least one tradition in the green jerseys.
How do the players feel about the lack of tradition? I haven’t talked to all of them but, going by what I’ve seen in practice this week, they care more about playing Spoto than anything else. This one’s about the seniors, who — according to a Patrick Colleran post-practice speech — have not won a Homecoming game yet.
Still, the pull of the Homecoming dance and wacky outfits during the week is enough to weigh on the minds of the players. It’s unavoidable, especially for the younger guys.
And, hey, that’s all a part of being a kid. The team does understand that.
“I’m allowing them to enjoy it but, at the same time, you know,” Ward says. “They need to understand the reason why there’s a Homecoming game.”
Looking back, that sounds a lot like my alma mater, Lake Region High School. Aside from getting our butts handed to us by Winter Haven, or whoever we happened to be playing, I don’t recall our football team doing anything special. No new unis, no getting the band away from its obsession with Queen, nothing. As always, we watched the game and wondered which two kids were going to fight over a girl under the bleachers.
In fact, the one memory that stands out to me was during Spirit Week junior year when, as I woke up, I realized that a spider had bitten my eyelid at night. I couldn’t even open it. I was worried about going to school looking like Sloth, from “The Goonies.”
Then, I remembered that we were allowed to wear sunglasses inside all day. Luckily, it healed up in time for the dance, and I didn’t have to be that guy who wore sunglasses while indoors at night.
So, don’t worry about the football players — they’ll (hopefully) make good memories doing everything else that Homecoming weekend has to offer, and a win on the field would be good enough to hold them over.
Do check your bedroom for spiders, though.