By Kylee Heintz, Allyson Green, and Jessa Nayman

When it comes to sports, everyone’s attention is on the in-season athletes. However, behind the scenes, Central’s numerous off-season athletes are working just as hard. Here’s how some of our athletes are keeping their skills sharp.

As a football player you want to stay big. “It’s important for them to take downtime in December, they need the kid time after coming off the grind,” said football coach Rob Sales. “But after December, the goal is to build a better athlete both mentally and physically.” One way to do this is to attend the football workouts three days a week, before school, where they work in the weight room and on skills such as hand-eye coordination, agility, footwork, reaction time, and body positioning. Defensive player Wanbli Rooks uses his post-season dissatisfaction to motivate him for his final season. When asked what the goals were for the upcoming season, as an individual he said he was aiming to do his job better than the person behind him, and stay motivated. “You’ve got to play for your teammates not yourself.” As for the team he kept it short: “Win state.”

On the club side of things, we heard from lacrosse players David Geditz and Nate Johns. Though they’re both multi-sport athletes–David playing football, wrestling, and lacrosse, and Nate playing football, hockey, and lacrosse–they agreed that lacrosse is their main sport. “I love lacrosse, so it’s pretty easy to stay motivated when you’re having fun, and knowing that I’m going to have to be a leader this year really makes me work that much harder because I want to be a good influence on the younger kids and everything,” David says.

On the other side of the spectrum we have the players whose main goal in the off-season is to stay quick and agile. Future collegiate softball player Dani Lowe says one of the most important skills for her to keep up is her footwork: “If you have great footwork as a softball player everything else will seem more natural as you play.” Footwork is an important aspect of any sport, especially in volleyball when you’ve got the whole back court to cover, like defensive specialist Shantelle Colombe. “I have to be fast and quick on my feet,” she shares. “I stay in shape for school volleyball by playing club volleyball for Black Hills Juniors, and I occasionally run or go to the gym and do cardio. Volleyball is a year round sport for me so I don’t really go out of shape.”

Although their hard work is only showcased when they step foot on the court, field, or track, Central’s athletes are working hard year round to sharpen their skills and staying ahead of the game.