Northside joins other schools in spring football workouts

Published 1:03 pm Thursday, May 22, 2025

By Jason O. Boyd

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YEATESVILLE, N.C. — There’s a short period of time near the end of the school year and before exams when football is on top of the high school sports world again.

Northside, Washington and Southside have been taking part in voluntary workouts with drills, running routes and weightlifting as part of the long process that is the high school football season. After battling some bad weather early in the week, the Panthers were able to get onto the field for the first time last Wednesday.

A group of between 20-30 teenagers was out on the practice field throwing footballs, running around barrels, stretching and other activities. There’s no hitting allowed, but teams can run plays, catch passes and a few other things to get back into the swing of things. They can do this three days a week during the time that it’s allowed.

It won’t be long before another high school football season will be here. The first official practice is July 30, with the first scrimmage on Aug. 8. Week 1 of the 2025 season starts on Aug. 22.

“It kind of gives you a chance to be a little less intense and kind of get to know the kids a little bit better if you don’t have them in your class,” Northside football coach Keith Boyd said. “If you’ve got a kid who’s 50-50, don’t know whether they really want to play or not, it kind of gives you a chance to, instead of being in their face all the time, kind of bring them along slow, show them it isn’t all what they hear it might be, the negative stuff.

“It’s just more laid back and you can work on the little teeny things that hopefully in September and October are why you’re winning. But take it real slow and methodical. If you’ve got to go over something ten times in a row, you just do it.”

Boyd said he’s fortunate that, because he teaches physical education and weightlifting, he sees a lot of the team already in class. So the focus turns to other things.

“Today is just, you know, who can catch, who can throw, who can get in a stance,” Boyd said before last Wednesday’s first practice. “You know, it kind of almost takes you back to rec ball and making sure everybody knows how to do the little things.

“Therefore, later on, they can not worry about that and move on to comprehending what you might try to be running. So we’re just trying to worry about the real little things.”

That same kind of teaching will come when the season begins for the incoming freshmen. Since those athletes are still in eighth grade, they can’t take part in these exercises. So it’s important to get the others up to speed quicker to make the actual start of the season a little less taxing for the coaches.

“Right now, we’re not allowed to work with the eighth graders,” Boyd said. “They will be ninth graders this year. So it kind of gives us a chance to, you know, bring those kids in that were with us last year, a year older, a year stronger.

“Maybe move them around a little bit more. And kind of jump out here and get going and not have to worry about, you know, some of the things that we might have to worry about when the freshmen come in.”

The Panthers were also shorthanded early on since many of the athletes were still in track season. Quarterback Chase Hewitt was working with the group. He threw for 529 yards and four touchdowns with just one interception last season. Others like leading rusher Sincere Columbus (1,169 yards, 17 TDs) and defender Zy’Marian O’Neal (59 tackles, four sacks) joined the team after the completion of the track team’s season at the state championships last Friday.

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