{"id":110649,"date":"2015-07-29T14:49:34","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T20:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-still-at-work\/"},"modified":"2015-07-29T14:49:34","modified_gmt":"2015-07-29T20:49:34","slug":"bears-still-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-still-at-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears still at work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Skieler
Skieler Grooms pulls in a pass as Forest Pejsa defends during Dolores' speed and strength training on Thursday.<\/span>Sam Green\/Dolores Star<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Football season doesn\u2019t officially start for another two-and-a-half weeks.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t tell the Dolores Bears football team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been going since February,\u201d coach Chris Trusler said as he watched players run routes last week during the team\u2019s workout.<\/p>\n

Starting in February, Dolores players arrived at school at 6:00 a.m. to lift weights before classes.<\/p>\n

They have continued to work this summer during football camp and 7-on-7 scrimmages, as well as speed and strength training every weekday at 5:00 p.m.<\/p>\n

Complying with CHSAA regulations, all offseason training is voluntary, so the athletes are not required to participate.<\/p>\n

Instead of putting themselves through conditioning drills under the beating sun, students could have chosen to escape the heat and simply relax at home playing video games.<\/p>\n

But they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The significance is not lost on Trusler.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got to buy into the program and buy into the system,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they have. These kids have worked really, really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trusler credits his players\u2019 commitment to working out during the offseason as a contributing factor for the team\u2019s improvement.<\/p>\n

After a 1-7 finish during Trusler\u2019s first year in 2013, the Bears improved to 4-5 last season. And he expects the team to be better this year.<\/p>\n

The Bears will continue voluntary speed and strength training throughout the summer until practice officially begins on August 17.<\/p>\n

Then, Trusler will put players through two-a-day practices beginning at 5:00 a.m.<\/p>\n

And they won\u2019t be voluntary.<\/p>\n

But Trusler will likely see the same sweaty faces he\u2019s seen since February: The group of committed athletes working hard to improve \u2013 even when they don\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores football players choose to put in voluntary practice time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6362],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-110649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-sports","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110649"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=110649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}