Forget summer free time, athletes can't wait 'til next year to work out

Font Size:

By Andrew Petersen | Monday, June 16, 2008 |

Mike Gealy lifts weights during a summer fitness program at Bettendorf High School. (Jeff Cook/Quad-City Times) Buy this Photo

Ah, summer vacation.

It’s the time for kids to briefly remove the “student” label and relax a bit. Unless of course you happen to be a high school athlete.

In that case, summer is time to train for next season.

Bettendorf senior-to-be George Dexter dropped baseball this summer to focus on basketball. But that just means time in the batting cage has been replaced with hours on the track and in the weight room.

“It’s intense,” Dexter said. “I found out real quick what it’s really like.”

The Bulldogs’ eight-week strength training camp began Monday. It’s one of countless options for athletes in all sports who are out to improve at the expense of any leisure time.

Dexter leaves the four-day-a-week, 90-minute workouts exhausted beyond reason, but he has imagined the alternative.

“It probably wouldn’t be good,” he said. “I’d be sitting on the couch sleeping.”

Working, not wasting, away

Iowa baseball and softball are the only state-sanctioned summer activities in the area.

Yet even those athletes involved in summer sports have additional commitments.

Davenport West senior Sam Saladino already is plenty busy helping the Falcons softball team stay atop the Mississippi Athletic Conference.

Yet between practices five times a week, she manages to get to the West Family YMCA to shoot around on the basketball courts nearly every day.

“I honestly do not know what else I’d do,” Saladino said. “I love doing sports, so it’s not like it’s a bad time.”

Next week, Saladino starts her workout regime for Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, where she will play basketball next season. Other free time is spent doing yard work for each of her grandmothers.

Playing ASA softball since her earliest athletic days, Saladino is accustomed to the grind. Plus, she is rewarded with a two-week fishing trip to Minnesota at the beginning of August.

Without school to break up the weeks and travel running through weekends, knowing what day it is can seem daunting.

Kannon Burrage will be at the United Township basketball camp this week and next. Just the fact that he’ll be in his hometown on consecutive weeks seems refreshing.

Burrage travels with the Ames-based Iowa Barnstormers nearly every weekend, and squeezes in time to work a couple of hours at Arby’s.

Otherwise, the soon-to-be senior keeps a ball in his hand, as if unsure when his next game might start. In between the organized games, he plays pickup games with his brothers around East Moline.

Burrage doesn’t take his evenings at home for granted, though.

“It’s real nice,” he said. “It’s so relaxing.”

Disappearing offseason

Since Davenport Assumption capped its perfect girls basketball season with the Iowa Class 2A state championship at the end of February, the Knights have spent little time away from the court.

Open gyms were twice a week in the spring and have only become more frequent.

“We really share all our kids in the spring,” Assumption coach Todd Borrison said. “We really encourage them to be there if they have time. Better they be doing something than sitting around.”

With so many players also on the softball team, Borrison switched summer open gyms to morning hours.

The numbers are huge, up to 35 girls at times. Many stay after high school play ends at 8 a.m. to help with the younger girls.

A few play on AAU teams as well and several others attend individual camps at universities.

“Programs around the state that are consistent year in and year out, they’re getting better in the offseason,” Borrison said. “If it isn’t fresh or it isn’t fun, they’re not going to be there. We don’t want it to be something where they don’t want to do this.”

The Bettendorf football workouts have gone on since the end of the Bulldogs’ state championship as well.

In his first year as head coach, Aaron Wiley previously spent 11 years as the team’s defensive coordinator. During that span, he’s seen a big transformation in what’s asked out of kids in the summers.

“It’s totally been a change,” Wiley said. “Back in the day, we had a weight room the size of my car. Now, we have a great facility.

“It’s a commitment, but it’s not something that’s going to monopolize their whole summer.”

Everyone needs time to work in that fishing trip before the school bell rings again in a couple short months.

Andrew Petersen can be contacted at (563) 383-2288 or apetersen@qctimes.com.