WEST SALEM — The summer was a bit of a whirlwind for Central High School football coach Michael Arnold, but the extra work he has put in after following previous coach Mitch Olson will soon pay off with a game.
Arnold didn’t have to acclimate himself to the inner workings of the RiverHawks because he’s been there for several years as an assistant coach.
But moving to the top spot brings with it more to do, and Arnold has had to balance that with football detail all summer. He had Central in West Salem for a few joint practices before getting his team on the field Tuesday for the first fall practice of the season.
“There’s a lot of extra stuff that goes on behind the scenes that people don’t see.” Arnold said during one of his team’s practices with the Panthers. “There has been a little bit of an awakening in terms of what Mitch was doing for us last year, but it’s been good.
“I’ve leaned on some of our veteran coaches, too, to help carry the load in some other places.”
While players have known what to mostly expect from Arnold through the past relationship, Arnold said he has made some minimal changes to the system, which has appeared to run smoothly. Some new drills have been implemented, but that’s about it, he said.
“For the kids, it’s a next-man-up situation involving a coach,” Arnold said. “I’ve gotten a lot of really positive words of encouragement from the kids, and that makes me want to work my tail off for them.”
The RiverHawks met twice each week for about an hour before picking up the joint practices and now beginning their own full practices as they build into a regular season that begins with a nonconference game at Merrill on Aug. 21 and continues with a home game against Ellsworth at the Veterans Memorial Field Sports Complex on Aug. 27.
“We really put the focus on kids understanding what we were doing on a day-to-day basis,” Arnold said. “The season hasn’t started yet, so we want them to understand what we want from them in individual groups, the sessions we have in practices and some of the Xs and Os of what we are doing.
“Come Aug. 4 (Tuesday), we can emphasize the effort and intensity and not have to focus on how we run the drills,” Arnold said. “That’s where we pick things up with the offense and defense.”
