The Chieftains’ cross country, boys soccer, football and volleyball teams unofficially kicked off the 2010-11 academic calendar Monday with the start of preseason practices.

THS teams received some relatively pleasant weather for their outdoor sessions Monday with the temperature peaking in the low 90s just a few days removed from scorching, triple-digit conditions. But coaches for all four fall sports said the success of the first few days of practice would have a lot more to do with the amount of summer work athletes did in preparation for their upcoming seasons.

The cross country team got a head start on its year with its traditional midnight run late Sunday night. Coach Phil Williams said the first few days of practice would feature some lower-distance work before the runners are pushed more with faster-paced things later in the week.

Williams said the first few days of running could be challenging for team members who didn’t spend enough of their own time practicing in the summer.

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“If all they did was come to the Tuesday and Thursday (workouts) we had, it’s probably going to help a little, but not a lot,” the coach said. “They’re supposed to be running on their own in addition to that. If they did that, they should be in pretty good shape.”

If any members of the soccer team weren’t already in shape when they arrived at the first practice Monday afternoon, new coach Brian Kroll said the first week could serve as “a life-altering moment.” He said the boys would be practicing twice — at 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. — on weekdays and on Saturday as they prepare for their Aug. 27 season opener at Baldwin.

“They’re going to be pushed to a level that I don’t think they’ve ever been pushed to before,” Kroll said.

Like Williams, Kroll said those who were dedicated to their sport in the summer would have an easier time with preseason practices. The number of soccer players who fall into that category, he added, isn’t as high as he would have preferred to see it. Kroll said he didn’t get the complete participation he hoped for in the summer but the “chosen few” who were religious about summer soccer work would reap the benefits at two-a-days.

“They are going to be so far ahead of the curve that the first three days of practice is not going to do to them what it’s going to do to the other ones,” Kroll said.

Benton Smith

The volleyball team was packing a lot into a little time Monday and Tuesday with two-a-days. Co-coach Brandon Parker said he thought the players could handle it because of their offseason work in June and July.

“We’ve had a lot of kids in this summer, so I think they’ve got a pretty good understanding of what we expect on certain things,” he said.

For Tonganoxie volleyball’s co-coaches, Tiffany and Brandon Parker, the most important part of the first few days of practice was getting the players moving at a fast tempo. Brandon Parker said that could be a challenge, only because the first handful of practices comprised the most continuous volleyball the players had experienced in a while. Another thing possibly holding things back at first, he added, could be the players’ nerves.

“You get to your first day and everybody’s a little anxious or nervous or whatever and sometimes that can lead to not playing as well as you feel you can,” he said.

As THS football embarked on a new year by scheduling 6:30 a.m. special teams and individual work to go with a two and a half hour evening practice Monday, coach Mark Elston said at least one aspect of the preseason practices would be completely in the hands of the players. The amount of conditioning work the Chieftains go through, Elston said, depended on the players’ performances.

“If they’re practicing extremely hard and extremely fast, then we won’t spend a whole lot of time conditioning,” the coach said. “They’re not up to speed, then it will look like they’re part of a track team.”

The good news for the varsity players was that freshmen practiced before they did, so rookie mistakes wouldn’t factor into the conditioning arrangement.

“The varsity guys should have a very good grasp of what’s taking place and they should be able to go fairly fast these first couple, three days,” Elston said.

The coach said the biggest challenge facing his team would be its ability to maintain intensity through the duration of a practice. Elston said the players must push themselves at the end of practices in order to have the stamina to do the same in the fourth quarter of a game. The THS staff is stressing that this season after four one-possession losses in 2009.

“There’s a direct correlation to did we practice those last 10 minutes as hard as we did the first 10 minutes,” Elston said, “because we were in every ball game right until the very end last year.”