Football Wife Life: Spring Ball

It's that time of year again!!!!

FOOTBALL!

Why yes, I know your favorite teams aren't actually playing right now and you're not spending your Saturdays glued to ESPN, but your favorite team is working their hiney off on the field and getting ready for next season when you will be watching!

For a football family, football NEVER ends. If it's not the season, it's recruiting. If it's not recruiting, it's spring ball. Then it's back to more recruiting, high school camps, fall practice, and season. It's a never ending, high paced, exciting cycle of our lives! 

Over the past few months, I've been pretty candid with my Football Wife Life discussions, taking you through the ins and outs of what it's really like! Today, I'm talking about Spring Ball. The time of  year, when you're focused on baseball, and we are still focused on football. 

Because, that's the only sport in our household. 

Practice for our team started mid-March. The week before spring break. I still haven't quite figured out why they start one week before spring break, take a week off, and then get back at it. It probably has to do with recruiting, but I like to think it's just because coaches can be difficult. So anyway, the week before spring break, DJ spent his Sunday and two more evenings at spring practice. 

I like to count this week as a "pretend" week. I pretend that it's not that time of year again, and I pretend that he's just working late and that our lives aren't really going to change again. 

Once we get back from Spring Break, that's when practice really begins in my eyes. His practices run Tuesday afternoon, Friday afternoon, and Saturday mornings.. 

On those days, he has to be at work before 8, because they have staff meetings. Those are the days that I have to get all the girls to school. The other days, he helps. Those are the evenings that he doesn't get home until 7. (On a good day.) If things are wrong, then it's closer to 8. 

During spring ball, DJ is at the coach's beckon call during the day. Although he gets to escape for lunch and sometimes the coaches get together to play a game of basketball. Practice begins around 3 in the afternoon. DJ has to lay out the practice schedules for his student filmers. His students are responsible for filming the sideline and endzone shot, and DJ films on the field to get highlights for upcoming videos. Once practice is over, he has to break down and edit the film for the coaches and players to review in team meetings. DJ also hangs around for the start of meetings in case any issues with technology come up; he has to be on hand to fix those problems.

The Saturday practices are the ones that I love. The ones that we don't ignore and that we make fun days out of!

For our first Saturday practice day, I took the girls out for doughnuts before heading to the stadium. 

Addy Pearl is a cheeser!

Megan, not so much. 

After doughnuts, we headed to the stadium.

On typical game days, we are inside the building, and the girls rarely make it in to the stands. For Saturday practices, they're right in it. The stands aren't too full, although many people do come out and watch practices! The girls get to run and climb and play. They have free reign. 

On this particular day, we had a lady walk over to the group of wives and kids and ask if we were the "coaches wives." Apparently, we are the only crazy ones that bring our kids out to watch a spring football practice. We totally stand out. Our kids are the ones running up and down the bleachers and waving to their daddies on the field. 

I pack snacks, because inevitably, the kids will get hungry and bored, and snacks buy me a little more time to watch practice.

Feet propped up and watching my hubby film practice. 

He's working on getting high-light shots for any high-light tapes he has to make between now and August. He has students who concentrate on filming the actual practice for the coaches and players to review later. 

The girls run and play. Last Saturday, they ran from one end of the bleachers to the other. They ran down as close as they could get to their daddy, and Megan harassed another wife by letting her babysit her babydoll. 

It was a little chilly last weekend, but that didn't stop us from heading out to practice!

Since we have a new coaching staff, and new wives, our Saturday practices give us a great opportunity to get to know each other and for our kids to play together. These women become family, kids become friends, and this is the beginning of our bonding as coaches wives; all cheering for and loving the same team. 

For the first time, I can say that I've been cheering for this team longer than any of them. We aren't the new people. We are the old people. The experienced ones. We're going in to our 5th season cheering for the Hurricane. 

Once practice is over, we head down to the field and the girls get to run around. This is probably their favorite part of the day! They love running around on the football field!

After the girls run and play, they get a drink of Gatorade and then we head up to the offices. 

The girls love to color on DJ's marker board. It's pretty small though and Megan has to stand on a chair to reach it! 

They color, run around the hallways, and make way too much noise!

Adalyn and I may have also stolen a doughnut from the kitchen! 

Unless you're truly involved with college football, I don't think you're really aware that spring practice even occurs. My neighbors are still shocked (after 4 years) that DJ has to work late or that the team has meetings and practices. 

Spring practices have almost always interfered with Easter celebrations in some way. If Easter is in late April, the Spring Game typically falls on the Saturday before. This year, Easter was early, but DJ still had practice that Saturday, which forced us to come back to town so we could celebrate as a family.

This weekend is our spring game. Fans can come out and watch and make predictions on how well the team might play next season. It's so much fun to watch and be a part of! There are officials and it feels just like a real game! I urge you to find out when your favorite teams spring game is and go! It's a much more relaxed atmosphere and so much fun for the kids to run around and play! 

Once our spring game is over, we'll have a few weeks of downtime while the other coaches are on the road recruiting. DJ will have his video convention for a week, and then he'll be gearing up for high school football camps in June.

We're so thankful for our football family and I love being a football wife!