Riverside players get work in, get work done

DECATURVILLE – While most football players have spent the past month doing bench presses and squats, one team took some time this week to continue lifting with a more tangible accomplishment to work toward.

First year Riverside head football coach Johnnie Frost has spent the better part of the four months since he moved to Decatur County getting things in the program the way he prefers.

That includes how the facilities look.

Earlier this week, he wanted to do something to spruce up the practice field.

“There were a couple of worn spots in the field that needed some sand,” Frost said. “Our offensive coordinator Eric Quinn said he could get us some sand.”

So 25 tons of sand was delivered to the team late last week. The mound of sand was about as big as the shed it sat next to through the weekend.

The players were there when the sand arrived and asked the coaches what the sand was for.

“We were up front with them,” Frost said. “We needed to get the sand spread through the field.”

There was a problem though. That much sand takes a lot of man hours to be spread evenly, and the large mound wasn’t going to move itself to the field.

Frost and his coaching staff decided to enlist the help of the players while getting them some extra conditioning work in as well.

“We told them to bring their shovels and rakes and whatever else they had to help [on Monday] because we were going to get to work,” Frost said.

And work the Panther players did. They went through a normal Monday morning of work including what the team calls “Frost Fit.” That’s a unique method of conditioning Frost came up with throughout his coaching career that involves giving the players a certain amount of time – about an hour with a few minutes’ difference for linemen and skill players – to complete a long list of physical tasks.

“That includes laps around the field, lunges across the field, gassers … it’s a tough list of things for them to do,” Frost said.

It was after Frost Fit when it was time to move the sand. The coaching staff divided the players up in class groups and assigned them different tasks within the process.

“We had a group on shovels, another on buckets, another on rakes and another on wheel barrels,” Frost said. “And they’d work in their station for a few minutes, and then we rotated them around between stations.”

Frost said he was amazed at how well the kids worked.

“There might’ve been a couple of complaints early on, but I don’t remember them if there were,” Frost said. “Those kids got in there and did the work. I was proud of them.”

What might’ve been more amazing was the end result. The Panthers moved 25 tons of sand in a little more than an hour.

“I was real proud of the guys for the way they worked and got the job done, and maybe there was even some teamwork built through the process as well,” Frost said. “I don’t know if doing this will help Riverside football win any games this fall, but I saw some attitudes in guys I wanted to see – that they’re willing to go to work and get the job done, no matter what it is.”

Brandon Shields, 425-9751