Published: May 14, 2008 10:45 am         

Spring a mystery for FCA Panthers

Spring football at French Camp Academy is unlike anywhere else.

While other schools are fine tuning things for the fall football season, coach Nathan Wright and his Panthers are putting together a team that may never hit the field together.

“We never know who we are going to have out in the fall,” Wright said. “We have toyed with the idea of not even having spring football, but we thought football might be a catch for a few of them, so we go ahead and plug it in anyway.”

FCA, which has day students as well as those who attend the boarding school, doesn’t necessarily have the same athletes from one year to the next.

This spring the Panthers only have four players out who saw any significant playing time during the 2007 season.

“We have lost a lot of kids,” Wright said. “The kids who are out are working pretty hard.”

Among those who are out for spring practice are Courtney Lucious and Justin Anderson.

“They are our only returning running back, receiver types,” Wright said.

The veteran FCA coach said that the type of team you have one year, really doesn’t have that much affect on how big of a turnout you will have the next.

“It’s all just a yearly thing,” he said. Wright said he expected about 35 or so to be out for fall practice when the time comes.

He said if he and the staff know that a player won’t be at FCA the next fall, they usually don’t ask them out for the spring.

But, he said there is always a chance of retaining the kids who do make it out for spring training. “If we can have a good spring, we do keep a lot of them,” Wright said.

French Camp’s spring workouts come to an end on Thursday when the Panthers play host to Montgomery County at 6 p.m. in a spring game.

“It’s something we just started doing,” Wright said of playing one opponent in a full game to conclude the spring. “It’s something that has really worked for us.”

The Panthers open the regular season on Friday, Aug. 29 when Sebastopol pays a visit.