Eat. Play. Sleep.
That is what the Bobcats will be looking forward to for the next eight weeks of summer before they head into fall conditioning and the regular season.
With only five to six players staying in Athens, the rest of the team will head home for the summer offseason to return to training and playing for hometown teams. Several players, mostly freshmen, play with their home club teams because they are still in the Under-19 age bracket. Coach Stacy Strauss said the rest of the players typically play in unpaid semi-pro women’s leagues to stay sharp.
“If I were a player and I didn’t need a job, I would focus on the workouts the coaching staff gives me and then play in the W-League for the summer,”
Strauss said.
Sophomore Cathryn Rogers is one of several players who will be playing in the semi-pro W-League. Rogers will suit up for her hometown squad, the Toronto Lady Lynx.
Many of the players get jobs during the offseason and then play as much as they can in their free time. Strauss said she and her staff understand the difficult task of having a job and also finding the time to get on the field.
“When I was in college, I had to work two jobs and somehow managed to find an hour or two a day to do a little work with the ball,” Strauss said.
Strauss and her staff prepare workout packets for the players to do during the offseason. The workouts are split between aerobics and weights.
The Bobcats will return to Athens Aug. 3 for the start of conditioning. The first week consists of the players’ living in one residence hall together, eating together and practicing during the day.
“It’s a very demanding several weeks of time and energy,” Strauss said. “It’s really a time where the relationships are forced of the freshmen getting to know the upperclassmen. There are a lot of team-building activities with watching movies, team-building environments and the traditional hike.”
Every preseason, the team takes a trip to a state park and takes runs along the trails, camps out, sees caverns and has campfires. The trip is a time when the team comes together, Strauss said, as it is a tradition the players and staff look forward to.
The 2011 fall schedule was recently released and pits the Bobcats against stiff competition. The season will open against Xavier Aug. 14.
“We’ve talked a lot this spring about not focusing on the competition but ensuring that we play to the best of our ability,” Strauss said. “I think if we do that, there is not a team on that schedule that we can’t compete with.”
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