Mustang Broncos embrace tradition with annual midnight practice, players' safety top of mind

When the sun goes down, the grind doesn’t stop, and that’s the case for the Mustang Public Schools football team as they held their seventh annual midnight practice on Monday.

Midnight madness? Maybe, but for these Broncos, it’s just another way to get stronger while keeping health and safety a priority.

Head Coach for the Mustang Broncos, Lee Blankenship, said the midnight practice started as a fun way for the players to get ready for practices, before they soon realized how valuable it was for midnight practice and the health and safety of his players.

“It’s just a perfect time for our kids to again get accumulated to the surroundings," Blankenship said. "The summer, the practice schedule, you know we got kids that work out in the summer, but it’s just different when you put the helmets on and the intensity and the length of a full football practice."

Blankenship said midnight practice was something he did at other programs that he wanted to incorporate at Mustang.

“We want to give the mentality and mindset of the kids that the first minute of the first day that it is legal to practice we are going to be on the field and take it," Blankenship said. "We did that, and then we discovered as we started doing it that it is kind of a modern-day new era two-a-day."

Blankenship said his team will slowly work their schedule into practicing under the sun.

"We’ll start with some later evening practices and then eventually we’ll get down to where we are practicing after school, but we always want the kids to be able to fully get accumulated to the heat," Blankenship said. "If you just throw them out there at 3:30 p.m. after school on the first da,y it would be really tough and your possibility of young people having heat-related illnesses goes way up when you do that."

Coach Blankenship said his coaches and staff are trained and educated on any heat-related or serious illnesses that can occur.

"All of our coaches here in our Mustang School District, it's mandatory to be CPR certified," Blankenship said. "We also do a lot of professional development on concussion recognition and just continuing education on all that stuff, it is really important. Our number one job as coaches when we have these young people entrusted to us is to make sure that we are keeping them safe and healthy, and doing everything we can to educate ourselves on how to do that.” 

Even in the cooler temperatures, Blankenship said the players, trainers, and coaches can get water breaks whenever they want.

Chance Davis, offensive lineman for the Broncos, said for him, the weather doesn't impact him; instead, these practices are all about the bonds he forms with his brothers.

“Strengthens our goals, our bonds with our teammates," Davis said. "Going through these little days, lights, whatever we are going through, just helps us come together as people and just grow together."

The midnight practice is open to the community.

The Broncos kick off their football season against Yukon on Sept. 5.