As Hart High football players engaged in a 6 a.m. workout on Wednesday morning, injured player Micaiah Underwood was given an important task — flying the team’s drone to take video. He had been trained by head coach Jake Goossen.
When an alarm went off alerting low battery, Underwood calmly manipulated the controls to bring the drone down — though it briefly went so high that teammates were joking it was out of control.
Managers make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for football players to eat after practices.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
Every head coach needs to delegate responsibilities and rely on others to help him focus on getting his team ready, and three important positions in 2025 are drone operator, manager and athletic trainer.
Every program needs one of each.
At a City Section school earlier this week, three managers were making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for players to eat after practices. At another school, the athletic trainer was taping ankles and roaming the field in case of an emergency. For those teams without athletic trainers, coaches were forced to take on the task.
Coaches kept handing out their keys to managers to retrieve or open something.
Managers and trainers have been around for years, but drone operators are new. At Hart, they have to pay special attention to hawks. Seriously, Hart had a drone disabled by a hawk. Now there are spotters to make sure no hawks are nearby. After all, Hart’s new nickname is the Hawks and apparently the real hawks like flying drones.
So everyone say thanks to the drone operators, managers and trainers. They’re unsung helpers every program needs.
Electric bikes lined up at Hart High.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
Oh, and one more trend. There are so many players using electric bikes to get to practices perhaps a charging station is next to be added on a program’s football budget.
