Workouts have commenced in the prison for the “big five” sports programs and all teams are getting their practices back in so they can be ready for their upcoming seasons.
So far, the baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, and 1000-Mile Running Club is practicing and running drills. Coaches are enthusiastic about running plays with the newcomers.
Although seasons for the sports programs last year were not able to flourish, prison buses are continuing to roll into the prison with new talent, making it difficult for coaches to pick during the tryouts.
Now, even with the continued threats of COVID in the side-mirror of prison life, sports teams are daring to get things going again. The question is: will the veterans return or will the newcomers that are flooding the prison with their presence take their place?
There is some pretty good talent arriving to the prison and the coaches are taking notice of it. The new sports program contracts installed for the players are giving them standards and procedures to abide by that may help coaches root out some of the tough decisions they may have to make.
It took the San Quentin Warriors and Kings basketball teams a couple of tryouts to establish their teams rosters. Once they had gotten their 15 players each, the coaches ran some scrimmages to determine their starters.
Coaches on the gridiron presented a combine-style training to determining the players they would weed out for the future of the San Quentin 49ers football team. Along with the intramural teams, coaches will have some tough choices to sort through the new talent.
The San Quentin A’s baseball team ran practices filled with veterans and newcomers. Their season this year, however, is still questionable.
Meanwhile, over 40 members of the 1000-Mile Running Club had no troubles when the members ran circles around the quarter-mile track kicking off their season with a three-mile race.
The San Quentin Earthquake soccer team had a 20- man competitive match on the fútbol Field of Dreams while building up their cardio for their season.
The San Quentin Tennis Club slapped tennis balls across the court, preparing for what might be a hopeful and long-awaited new season.
Last season’s sports records were short for all prison sports teams and they did not level up. All teams usually would get to play at least 20 to almost 40 games per season.
All seasons have yet to begin officially, however, all of the teams have revved up their scrimmages to be prepared for when the outside challengers show up.
