Journey begins

(Editor's note: Mansfield football standout Mike McPherson joins the crew at Player Diaries for the fall season. Check out his bio in the left rail. Here is his first entry of the season).

The preseason began last week after a long offseason of hard work and this year the Mansfield Hornets football team will look to once again become the Hockomock League champions.

The only catch is that we want it all to ourselves and we want to go to the playoffs. Since my freshman year, when I saw the varsity team win the Super Bowl, and how excited they were after that game, that's all I've wanted.

Unfortunately, the last two years we have been one game away.

The first three days of practice are no-contact practices and we used them to improve our skills and grasp a better understanding of the playbook. Those are the three most boring days of the season, but are good for the sophomores as they make a transition to varsity football.

The fourth day we strapped on the pads and came out flying around in the first full-pad practices of the season. As the end of practice winded down my linemen and I were excited to watch the skill players in open-field tackling. The star of the show was junior Nate "Crazy Legs" Levine as he juked starting middle linebacker/fullback Mike Abany, one of our captains.

Last Friday, the day after our first full-pad practice, we departed to our annual preseason camp. This year we changed it up and traveled to Camp Mac-kee-nac, which was in the middle of nowhere. With a combination of sub-par food and grueling practices, it really proves who is ready to play on Friday nights and who is going to be playing Monday afternoons with JV.

The days start with a 5:45 a.m. wake-up call by the always energetic coach Selmon, and the day of hard work and football begins from there. Sophmores continue the tradition of getting bizarre haircuts such as "The Old Man" and "The Yamaka".

The sophomores and rookies also take part in the annual talent show, which often has several terrible acts and a few decent ones. Although the temperature rose well above 90 degrees, we were able to overcome the heat and come together as a team and that will prove very valuable in the fourth quarter on Friday nights.

We closed out our week by stopping on the way home at Minnechaug Regional for a scrimmage. We looked sharp for our first time out against another team, but there are still several things we want to improve on. During the scrimmage our offense looked solid. Our first-team offense scored three times in 20 plays with big plays by Abany and Powell Simpson, as well as a good showing by the offensive line.

For most of the scrimmage our defense looked immovable as we continue to plug up the middle on runs and put constant pressure on the quarterback. This season we have a lot of returning players that have varsity experience and anything short of the playoffs for us could be a disappointment. To get where we want to be at the end of the year we will have to improve on many things and just work to get better everyday.