{"id":119508,"date":"2014-06-18T19:59:58","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T01:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/football-players-work-hard\/"},"modified":"2014-06-18T19:59:58","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T01:59:58","slug":"football-players-work-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/football-players-work-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Football players work hard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kellen
Kellen Gatzke lifts weights as Coach Chris Trusler spots. Members of the Dolores football team are working out this summer preparing for the fall season.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After finishing the 2013-14 season with a 1-7 record, members of the Dolores High School football team could have thrown in the towel.<\/p>\n

Determined to reverse their team\u2019s fortunes however, players have been working tirelessly to improve.<\/p>\n

Much of the group\u2019s work has taken place in the weight room, where coaches host voluntary workouts five days a week.<\/p>\n

Thus far, between 20 and 25 players have consistently attended the workouts, which focus on a different area of the body each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe attendance has been phenomenal,\u201d said Dolores High School head coach Chris Trusler. \u201cWe have more than doubled the attendance that we had last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Incentivizing attendance at the workouts is a deal made between Trusler and the Denver Broncos that will allow players to travel to in late July.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys that make 85 percent of the summer workouts get a tour of Sports Authority Field, they get to watch a minicamp and they get Denver Broncos swag.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition weight room sessions, players have been attending on-field workouts where coaches stress fundamentals and practice plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re fixing little errors that we are seeing from the guys,\u201d said Trusler. \u201cWe\u2019re teaching them the offense and teaching them the defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the team will also attend two camps this summer, including one in Cortez this coming weekend and one at Fort Lewis College later this summer.<\/p>\n

Discussing the energy currently surrounding the Dolores program, senior Guy Wallace had nothing but good things to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is definitely the most work that anybody has done since I\u2019ve been in high school,\u201d said Wallace.<\/p>\n

Also benefiting from the summer workout program has been freshman Austin Hackney, who, trying out football for the first time, has enjoyed the experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been fun,\u201d said Hackney. \u201cWhen I first thought of playing high school football, I was scared, but it has been great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, even though the Dolores program still has work ahead, the fact that players are engaged and having fun indicates that the team\u2019s fortunes may be turning.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal (for next season) is to do better than we did last year,\u201d said Trusler. \u201cWe\u2019re looking to be able to compete, play hard and win more football games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the work that players are putting in, drastic improvement appears to be a legitimate possibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

confident that offseason will lead to improvement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119509,"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-119508","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\/119508","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=119508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119508"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=119508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}