Under hot summer days and a burning sun, the LASA football team has undertaken challenges vastly different from years prior. For the next two years, the team will not compete in the University Interscholastic League (UIL), and in place of former coach Derrick Lewis, United States Army veteran, high school coach, and athletic coordinator Gary Howard will be leading and teaching the players as LASA’s head athletic coordinator and football coach. Following the two years after LASA’s split from LBJ High School, both sports and fine arts at LASA were not included in UIL competitions, so while the challenge the football team faces now isn’t unprecedented, its role as the sole sports team not taking part in UIL has put them in an unique position within the school.
Senior wide receiver Austin Buckley noticed a reduction in the number of players on LASA’s team this year. Last year, 17 of the team’s players graduated, meaning there are only 21 players returning from last year.
“The big thing is that we’re just short on players. So we have at most like 12 people out there, which means we can’t really do any big stuff,” Buckley said. “This school is not really focused on football. Whereas a lot of other schools, that is their main thing, so they get a lot of funding…”
Senior running back Alec Marintzer attended the summer practices at LASA, which were held in the weight room and outside on the field twice a week. Those practices ended several weeks before the start of the school year, being replaced by daily sessions Monday through Friday to increase players’ ability with higher intensity.
“Because it’s a magnet school where academics are the main focus, [athletics are] not really a priority,” Marintzer said. “You can’t bring people up from middle school. They have to apply and get in. If they don’t get in, there’s nothing you can do to get them in.”
According to Buckley, LASA’s summer practices are known for being difficult. He explained that players run, tackle and do drills for hours outside and push themselves further in the weight room.
“We have strength and conditioning first for two hours,” Buckley said. “And then every Tuesday and Thursday we have an hour of practice. And that’ll normally change based off of what coaches are there, but generally it’s a mix of agility, simple form stuff, and tackling, which we’ve been working on a lot recently.”
The new coach made some changes to the offensive playbook, as are necessary during turnover according to Marintzer, though the defensive playbook is staying the same. According to Buckley, some players were initially reluctant about the changes, as former Coach Lewis’ routes and plays had previously been popular among them.
“It’s [now] a lot more short-game and run-based,” Buckley said. “Our last coach was an NFL receiver, so he knew a lot about scheming for routes. Before we get to the actual season, it’s a lot of just fundamentals, agility, just trying to get baseline athleticism up.”
Vincent Cruz is the assistant head football coach, and last year he was both the defensive coordinator for football and the head coach for softball. He has played a pivotal role in preparing players for the upcoming football season this summer alongside Howard, who led the summer PE sessions early in the summer.
“It’s more of a combined effort, but [this summer], Coach Howard is doing PE,” Cruz said. “So while he’s there I’m out here doing football.”
The decision to withdraw LASA’s football program from UIL due to its low enrollment came as a surprise to some, and it being followed by Coach Lewis’s resignation made for a more difficult situation to adapt to. The team will now have to drive several hours for some games, which will be taking place in cities such as Houston and Falls City in addition to Austin.
“That transition [in play] has been rough, not really knowing what’s going to happen, not really knowing the schools that we’re playing,” Cruz said. “Going into this non-honor thing, we don’t really know our opponents.”
LASA’s football team has previously played against other schools in the Austin Independent School District (AISD), which the rest of the school’s teams will continue doing. Having withdrawn from UIL, it will now be playing against a mix of continuing and new opponents ranging from public schools, charter schools and private schools, some of which will include Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) Northeast, Legacy the School of Sport Sciences, and Fall City.
“There’s going to be a lot of changes, a lot of growing together,” Cruz said.
There are currently four coaches on staff, and Cruz expected to hire two more. Each coach specializes in training certain players, such as the special teams, wide receivers, or defensive backs.
“We have a chance to go back [to UIL] in two years,” Cruz said. “The amount of kids that we have, where we’re at program-wise, that’s gonna determine whether we go back to UIL.”
The team has ramped up their training, having recently transitioned to everyday practices which are now taking place after school. Although summer practices are difficult, according to Buckley, players often say it’s that training that leads to the most crucial improvement in their performance later on in the season.
