The Greenville High School football team has been hard at work during their off-season training. Coach Darren Duke began Football Boot Camp in 2017 as a way to focus on the 4 Core Values of the GISD Athletic Department. The model of discipline and commitment of the military boot camp is the inspiration behind 3 weeks of intense training. The athletes are divided into 6 companies- Alpha, Bravo, Charley, Delta, Echo and Foxtrot. The teams dress alike, eat together and give up their regular workout clothes for plain white T-shirts.
The workouts are different as well. Regular off-season workouts involve weightlifting as well as drills to increase speed and agility. Boot Camp is designed to challenge each company physically and mentally, while reinforcing the 4 Core Values. The whole company must meet expectations for attendance, dress code, behavior, and have a limited number of mistakes during workouts for each day to count. Fifteen good days are required to finish, and this year's team was the fastest to complete Boot Camp only having to repeat 3 days.
Core Values:
- Work hard- to understand and embrace the value of working hard to achieve your goals. As you can see from their expressions, they truly love the Work!
- Be Tough- to overcome obstacles and play a contact sport requires physical toughness and to overcome setbacks and adversity takes mental toughness. These life lessons can only be learned by putting yourself in challenging situations and learning to persevere.
- Be disciplined- success requires dedication and a commitment to doing things the right way. We have one team rule: be where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there, doing what you're supposed to be doing. I believe following this will take them a long way in sports, school, and life.
- Be a team- dressing alike, eating lunch together, and holding each other accountable are all part of learning how to be a good team-mate and learning what it means to be dedicated and to sacrifice for the team to achieve.
“I’m really proud of how this year’s team performed at boot camp.” Coach Duke said. “They were not only the fastest to complete the 15 days, but they loved the challenge. It was like a competition every day, and usually I win fairly easily. Not this year… they worked hard, stayed tough, showed discipline and developed into a really good team. They earned #TOB status and I can’t wait to see all of that carry over into football season.”
The team is preparing for Spring Football (April 24 - May 16), and the 2023 football season, which will kick-off with Midnight Madness, August 6.
