Five county coaches will make debuts

By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

They call it fall practice, but it begins in the mid-summer heat of August for high school football teams in Florida.

Beginning Monday morning, over 600 teams statewide, and seven in Osceola County, will begin preparations for the regular season, which starts Sept. 3. The preseason Kickoff Classics are set for Aug. 26 and 27.

An unprecedented number of new coaches will take charge in Osceola County, where five of the seven programs have a new leader.

St. Cloud Coach Bill Buldini, hired in late June, was the most recent to take over a team after Mark Jackson resigned in early June. Jackson since has taken a job at Naples Golden Gate High.

“We’ve had a good turnout over the summer. Even before the new coach was named, we had the kids coming in, so we didn’t miss a lot,” Buldini said. “We’re in pretty good shape. We’re ready to go, we’re looking forward to it.”

The Bulldogs will practice twice a day next week, for about three hours each morning and for another hour or two in the afternoon, Buldini said.

“We’ve had about 50 kids (excluding freshmen) in over the summer,” Buldini said.

Buldini came to St. Cloud as the defensive coordinator last spring after three seasons at Osceola before he was elevated to head coach.

The Bulldogs participated at a preseason Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp last week to prepare for the season and also participated at several 7-on-7 tournaments.

Liberty Coach David Benson officially took the head coaching job in June, but he ran the team through spring practice after Doug Nichols moved to Osceola in April.

“We’ll go twice (a day) next week, then go back to one practice the next week because that’s when the teachers report for work,” Benson said. “We gave the kids two weeks off right after spring practice, and since then we’ve been pretty much going every week.”

The Florida High School Athletic Association modified its bylaws several years ago, permitting coaches to work with their teams on campus over the summer in non-contact drills.

Teams will practice in shirts and shorts for three days next week before contact drills are permitted.

Nichols, a former OHS assistant coach for 16 years before taking the Liberty job three seasons ago, took the Kowboys to a day camp last week.

“It’s a little different than what they had been doing here, but it was a lot cheaper and we still get the work in,” Nichols said.

Other new coaches on the job for the start of fall practice Monday are Michael Timpson at Poinciana and Ben Aarestad at Celebration.

Timpson said the Eagles will practice at 4 p.m. daily next week, except for a conditioning session Monday morning and a 2:15 p.m. start Monday afternoon.

“The fortunate part is that I’ve had these kids since March, so a lot of the discipline and and expectations have been established,” Timpson said. “The kids had last week off to take care of their personal business, so I expect them to show up ready to go to work.”

Timpson, who played at Penn State and in the NFL as a receiver, said he isn’t nervous about beginning his first regular season as a public high school coach.

“No, not nervous at all. We just want to clear the cobwebs and get to it,” he said.

The holdover coaches are Dayne Brown at Harmony, now the dean of the county’s football coaches in his third season, and Marlin Roberts at Gateway, in his second season.

Brown, who took his squad to several 7-on-7 competitions, continues Harmony’s traditional “Camp Longhorn” next week where the team stays on campus together through the first four days of workouts.

Other fall sports such as volleyball, golf and swimming also begin practice Monday. Cross country practice starts Aug. 16.