With the start of official practices and only 16 days until the first game of the season, questions and outside expectations about Tallassee football are piling up. After the program’s monumental turnabout last season with now second-year coach Lawrence “L.A” O’Neal, the people want to know: will the success continue this season?
“The biggest expectation is the ones that we put on ourselves,” O’Neal said. “We expect to be a competitive ball club each and every time we take the field. We set the expectation high within our program, because if you have low expectations, you meet those. But if you have high expectations, then most of the time you meet those as well.”
Like the collected coach and leader that he is, O’Neal is still taking it day by day, week by week. When the season starts at the end of August, then it’ll be game by game. Right now, the focus is making sure the details are just right.
“It was a really, really good first week of practice,” O’Neal said. “To get the kids out there, get them acclimated to the heat the first two days and then put the pads on and find out who your men and who your boys are when you put the pads on. It was good to get them excited to start hitting a little bit, and we found some things out about ourselves.”
The game of football is a combination of a marathon and a one-legged race, only with 11 guys rather than two. It requires preparation, determination, effort and coordination with every player that sees the field. So many things have to go right for a team to win a football game, many of which are out of anyone’s control. When you pay attention to the details, you strive to take back some of that control and gain the elusive ability to win a game on your own terms.
O’Neal has shown he has keen understanding of the game and its smallest details, but most importantly how to demand the best from the young men who take the field in that purple and gold. Expectations build you up and tear you down, but that knowledge remains.