Photo Credit: EverythingGP stock photo

By Shane Clausing

high school football

Local high school football coaches excited for upcoming season

Aug 30, 2021 | 2:20 PM

With students across Alberta heading back to the classroom this week, it means the high school football season is just around the corner.

The last time a full season of high school football was completed was back in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been a long wait for coaches and players, who’ve been itching to get back on the field.

While the last two years of football have mostly consisted of practices and scrimmages, St. Joseph High School Head Coach Trevor Prichard says his team is excited to get back to playing meaningful games.

“I think we’re all very excited. We’ve been going at it for a couple of weeks now, and we had a great exhibition match-up against Harry Ainlay High School last week out of Edmonton, who are the reigning Tier 1 provincial champions,” he explained.

“We were able to kind of control the scoreboard and really showed what our players are going to have to look forward to this season.”

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Prichard and his coaching staff started their training camp in the middle of August. Since then, he says he’s been very pleased with what he’s seen from his team.

“We’ve been pretty blessed, the core of our roster all had opportunities to play at the U16, U17, and U18 levels for Football Alberta and had great success,” said Prichard.

“Those kids are all back with us, so it’s really nice because there’s that experience and skill level for a lot of the other younger players to take note, follow and mentor behind.”

“It’s really added a lot of promise for this season with that kind of caliber of talent. We’re really impressed with our young guys too. The future bodes well, and so does this season.”

Prichard tells EverythingGP that numbers for his team are strong this year, however, with numbers for some teams down across the province, they were unable to field a junior varsity team this year.

“It’s going to be very difficult to have two sets of teams to compete with. What we decided is we’re going to have a travel and a non-travel roster.

The non-travel roster will be everybody dressed and ready to go for home games, but unfortunately, we can only fit 49 (people) on a bus,” he said.

Prichard added the reason for the travel and non-travel rosters is so that everyone who wants to play and is willing to put the work in can get a chance to play.

The Celtics will begin their regular season on September 1 in Peace River, they’ll then have a quick turnaround and play a team from Okotoks in Fort. Saskatchewan on Friday, September 3.

The Grande Prairie Composite High School Warriors are also gearing up to start their season.

Symon Pfau, the Head Coach for the Warriors says his club is just as excited as St. Joseph to get back on the field.

“It’s been interesting, but still really exciting. I think all of our boys are excited to be normal teenage boys again.

Hopefully, it can stay that way and everybody is loving football.” According to Pfau, they have between 30-35 players currently registered to play for their team.

While they’re excited for the season, Pfau hopes they’ll be able to complete their season without any disruptions.

“I think there’s a lot of things out of your control. We don’t want to get shut down, we want to play a season and (give) kids a chance to win games and go to provincials.”

Their season kicks off on September 3 against Sexsmith at a venue that is still to be determined.