Pioneers stay open late Friday

By Steve Behr
It was a chance to merge a fund raiser with football practice and an idea that’s normally reserved for college basketball.

But when Watauga’s Touchdown Club and Watauga’s football team got together, they decided to host their own Midnight Madness Friday night/Saturday morning at Jack Groce Stadium.

The touchdown club is hosting a raffle with a grand prize of $5,000 on the line. The event begins with a dinner at 6 p.m. that is being catered by the Dan’l Boone Inn. Only those who have purchased the $100 raffle tickets are eligible to eat dinner.

Following the raffle, which begins around 7:30 p.m. Appalachian State head coach Jerry Moore will be the keynote speaker, which should be around 9:30 p.m. Afterward, parents can take photos of their kids while in uniform, and then the players, both varsity and jayvees, will be introduced at 11:30 p.m.

At midnight, the Pioneers will hold practice for about an hour and a half.

“We’re excited about it,” Watauga coach Tim Pruitt said. “It will basically be a practice for about an hour and a half. We’ll do what we normally do the first day of contact. We’ll warm up and then do a tackling circuit followed by some man-on-man stuff.”

It’s a chance for Watauga to do something different than in recent years. The Pioneers began official fall workouts last Saturday, and after taking Sunday off, have conducted practices through Wednesday.

Watauga has two varsity players, Matt Horney and Jordan Pineda, slowed by ankle injuries, but Pruitt said neither injury was very serious and that both players will be ready to go by Thursday. Pruitt expects that there will be the usual bumps and bruises once contact begins.

“Overall, we were healthier than the day before,” Pruitt said of Wednesday’s workout. “It’s one thing that is always a concern. You’d love to get all of them there for the first game, but it doesn’t always happen. Saturday will be the first time we’ll have any contact and any time you have contact, you’re going to have bumps and bruises.”