Pitman’s football program started off with a bang on its first real games of the season. All three football teams from the Pride beat each football team from Enochs High on Friday, August 24.

Many factors contributed to these amazing wins for the Pride, but all the games shared something in common; the teams won it in the second half of the game, which is usually when a player’s stamina starts to wear off.

Pitman football doesn’t start when school starts; it actually starts a few weeks after the school year ends in June. This summer-long program trains the players to perfect their skills and strategies. One of the things they primarily focus on is endurance.

Endurance is a key component in a game that lasts four very long, tiring quarters. If a player’s endurance is lacking, then there is no way they can last through an entire game. This is why the coaches stress the importance of having stamina throughout each quarter.

Coach Wolfley, who controls what work outs are done in the weight room, knows just how to train the body to maintain endurance. He uses such training methods as circuit training. In an average circuit training workout, a player pushes themselves as hard as they can for 12-18 seconds nonstop until they rotate to a different station. Then at the next station, the same process is done. There are about ten different stations with usually five rotations. These circuit workouts train the body to work at maximum velocity. In the long run, this helps the body to work hard during all the quarters of a football game.

As a member of the audience watching the game that was played on Friday, it wasn’t difficult to tell how having good stamina could affect the outcome of a game.

At the end of the first half, Enochs had a lead of 19-7. In the second half, however, Enochs’ lack of endurance started to show. Even though they made an additional two touchdowns, they had a barrage of errors, and could barely make any progress on the field.

Pitman, on the other hand, seemed to have not been phased at all by the first half. Our defense let little pass its wall, and our offense had an amazing recovery, earning four additional touchdowns, which gave them the winning score of 35-31.

Training, especially endurance training, is crucial to have a successful team for any sport. The work that was done over the summer was difficult and strenuous, but it was the key component for the win over Enochs.