Health & Fitness
Eagles Football Trains with the U.S. Marines Corps
The Eagles Varsity Football team completed their summer training camp with a two-day Marine Corps training session, focusing on leadership and teamwork.
The Eagles Varsity football team completed its summer training program with a two-day Marine Corps training experience. The first day concentrated on a classroom session, led by Captain Dan Kinney of the US Marines Corps. Focusing their attention on leadership traits such as judgment, knowledge, integrity, loyalty, bearing, responsibility, and character, the athletes were given the task of defining the terms and determining how each applied to both the team and the individual players, on and off the field. “I never gave much thought to what it means to be a leader when it comes to these specific traits,” said Eagle Senior Michael Howard. “This really gave us a different perspective on what it means to be a leader,” Howard added.
The second day the Eagles were led through a variety of challenges that pushed the athletes to work together as a team, as well as demonstrate their own physical strength. “Although they were tough, I felt good completing the different tasks, but learned it wasn’t about me completing things as an individual, but how my teammates were keeping up—to keep us together as a team,” explained Senior Dennis Bresingham. “The tasks were challenging, but we worked to motivate one another and when one teammate struggled, we pulled together to help that person be successful,” added Senior Yani Demogerontas. Players were divided into four groups, each with 13-15 athletes per team. Each team then completed various physical tasks such as completing 200 pull ups; 25 yards of “building a house”, whereby teammates crawled through a bridge made by players; multi-player partner push-ups; and completing the challenge by taking turns carrying a teammate 50 yards. “We really came together on this and it was an experience that taught us a lot,” said Senior Sean Leland after completing the challenges.
“I learned about the Marine Corps training program from a Coaches Clinic this past spring,” explained Head Coach Dave Wierzal, “We’re always looking for that something extra we can use to help take us to the next level as a team. Both the classroom session and the outdoor part of the training tested the players mentally, physically, and as a team,” Wierzal added.
