For many students, summer is a time to catch up on sleep lost during the school year. For De Soto High School athletes, including the football team, this is not the case.

Over the summer, the football team holds early weights practices to train and stay in shape for the season.

“I think the goal in the off season is to come back a completely different athlete. If that’s not your goal, your not going to be successful. I think summer time is a huge time frame to set aside and make strength and conditioning a priority,” coach Bryan King said.

Summer football weights is conducted similar to a weights class during the school year, but is directed specifically towards strengthening football skills.

“It’s like weights in class, but we do a lot more specialized workouts. Most of the time, he’ll have us do core stuff like squats, bench, hang cling, all that stuff, but, a lot of times, he’ll put in extra arms and legs workouts,” junior Rex Templin said.

To be a part of summer weights, the football players have to wake up earlier than most students would on a regular day over the summer.

“Normally, I’ll wake up around 6 a.m. and I’ll head over to the school around 6:45. Weights starts at 7,” sophomore Paden Bedford said.

Most of the football players get home from weights before many other students are even awake, according to Templin.

“[I] get up at 5:45 … Pretty consistently, I get home around 9:30,” Templin said.

Many people cringe at the thought of getting up that early nearly everyday over the summer, but the football team believes it is a necessity, and could not see it being any other way.

“If you want to fit in your social life and if you work and want to do other things over the summer, I’d rather have it in the morning. It makes it easier,” freshman Darren Winans said.

Having weights so early in the morning also helps with commitment, according to Bedford.

“It shows that you really are committed to the team,” Bedford said. “It’s not easy to wake up early in the summer, but it’s just a thing you need to do if you want to play.”

According to Templin, another reason morning weights is important to the football team is because it keeps the players honest.

For example, “you won’t go out and drink on the weekdays, because you have to get up so early in the morning,” Templin said.

Getting together for weights over the summer gets the team connected.

“The more time that you spend together as a football team, the more tolerant of each other you are,” Templin said. “If we didn’t have morning weights, then the freshmen wouldn’t know who the seniors are and the seniors wouldn’t know who the freshmen are. You just don’t know each other, and for football especially, that’s important.”

Although waking up early to go workout can be hard, “you make memories you’ll never forget. It sucks, but it’s worth it,” Winans said.