Summer practices are underway for the Mingus football program. But for multiple reasons, things are a little different for the Marauders than they’ve been in the past.
For starters, Mingus has a new coach. Doug Provenzano is now guiding the Marauders program. He replaces Robert Ortiz, who led the team for two years but was not retained after the 2019 season. Provenzano has a lot of history coaching in the Valley of the Sun. He most recently was an assistant for Peoria’s Liberty High School and had previous head coaching experience at Phoenix’s Goldwater and Surprise’s Paradise Honors high schools before that.
One of the things Provenzano’s enjoyed has been the cooler temperatures of Cottonwood.
“I never want to coach football in the Valley again with this kind of weather,” he said. “It’s been 12 degrees cooler, 13 degrees cooler. And when you’re used to coaching in 120, I can tell that I’m not as exhausted.”
Provenzano added that he’s liked how well his new team has adjusted to his style of coaching.
“They really are adjusting pretty quick,” he said. “All kids love discipline and they love to be loved at the same time they’re getting discipline. They want discipline with a purpose. It’s nothing personal. It’s not a personal thing. It’s discipline for what we need to be great and successful at this sport. I just try to get kids to play as hard as possible, that’s my ultimate goal, to get them to play as hard as they can.”
The coach was upbeat about the program’s overall numbers, noting that more than half of the players — 35 of 64 — are incoming freshmen.
But while that bodes well for the long term future of the program, the best varsity teams are almost always laden with seniors. One of the Mingus seniors, receiver Jonathan Sanchez, knows that getting more upperclassmen out on the field will be important to have a successful 2020 season.
“It’s going pretty well — everybody is liking it so far,” Sanchez said. “The main thing we need to work on is getting our numbers up, especially the seniors because we’re still pretty low. But so far we’re putting in a lot of work and just getting ready for the season.”
In addition to a new coach, the COVID-19 restrictions make these practices unusual, as well. Practices mostly consist of conditioning drills and working with different equipment like tackling dummies and sleds. Every time a player touches a piece of equipment, a coach wipes it off to sanitize it for the next player.
Because of the restrictions, something else absent from the practice is a ball. However, while the veteran Marauders said that practicing with a ball would be nice, they added that not having one is actually something of an advantage.
“A ball would help a lot with everything, but for the most part we’ve been handling it pretty well,” senior Drew Meyer said. “We really don’t need a ball at the moment because we’re conditioning and getting into shape.”
“It lets us focus on getting in shape instead of trying to learn plays,” fellow senior Zach Figy added. “It dumbs it down a little bit and runs the kids that don’t want to be committed off.”
Additionally, the Mingus players as well as their new coach know that while the restrictions keep the summer practices from being completely normal, they are only temporary.
“We told them that these rules are just right now,” Provenzano said. “Eventually you’re going to be able to tackle, grab a football and hit. We just have to do this now. So let’s all just suck it up, have a positive attitude and do this now.”
