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Published Wednesday, August 06, 2008 in Sports

Photo by Jeffrey Leo

Northgate Vikings head football coach Bill Luckie will have an overnight camp on Friday, holding five practices in 24 hours to help get the team focused heading into next Friday’s scrimmage.

Northgate looking to regain 'mental toughness' this season

By Chris Goltermann

The Times-Herald

Things certainly got more physical on the Northgate High football practice field with the addition of full pads on Wednesday. In just over a week, the Vikings expect to put them to even greater use in a scrimmage at home next Friday at 7:30 p.m., against Woodward Academy.

Still, there is no pad available for what Northgate head coach Bill Luckie wished to recover from most during the first week of practice prior to the 2008 season

Namely a bruised ego.

"I'm really emphasizing a mental toughness with our team," said Luckie, who enters his ninth season at Northgate and fourth as head football coach. "The tradition at Northgate in the past has been play great defense and play mentally tough. And we're trying to reclaim it."

After a 1-9 season in 2007, and three consecutive at or below the .500 mark, the Vikings weren't about to get any handouts in Wednesday's heat from the Northgate coaching staff, whose voices on occasion easily could have reached the 100 decibel mark -- a sure sign that high school football practice is alive and well in Georgia.

Yet even after an extended practice under the hot August sun, Luckie was encouraged after practice that the program can regain the "mental toughness" needed to return to the state football playoffs for the first time since 2004.

"For the first day of school and the first day in pads, I thought it was a pretty good day. You go a lot of other places and you might see kids dragging," said Luckie. "Sure we had to stay on them, but this thing really didn't seem like a first day out there."

For a team that saw three athletes sign Division I football scholarships in February, including All-County Defensive Player of the Year Derrick Brisbane, Northgate has plenty of stability in at least 15 returning starters between both sides of the ball, though some of them have yet to make it back onto the field while nursing injuries.

"It's typical. Bumps and bruises," said Luckie. "But I guarantee you they won't think about those bumps play Woodward next Friday. They'll be ready to go."

For as much stability, some things admittedly warranted change according to Luckie. They were in full view during Wednesday's practice, which saw Northgate run a pair of 10-minute conditioning sessions in between its drills, rather than at opposite bookends of a three-hour day. In previous summers, the team would lift weights, then run stadium steps before heading out to the practice field.

"We got them tired before we even started practice. So mentally they had to really focus to get through practice," said Luckie. "We've got a lot of players who have come over the summer and worked hard who right now are in good shape."

The region schedule doesn't expect to get any easier, considering that the Vikings are joined in a new 5-AAAA alignment with four familiar Fayette County teams from a former 2-AAAA lineup. And while keeping opponents to under 20 points in four of its last six games, Northgate's offense was shut out five times in 2007.

"Our seniors have worked hard in trying to lead us. Everybody's 0-0," said Luckie. "We're just trying to get it going."

One way to do that includes another change from preseason camps of the past. This weekend, Luckie and his staff will host a mini-camp starting with a practice Friday night. The team will then spend the night at the school before practicing four times on Saturday, the first one scheduled to start at 5:15 a.m.

"I'm trying to make them understand that we've got to be mentally tough," he said. " We kinda lost a little of that last year. We're trying to get that back."