Editor's note: This is a close up look at Richmond Hill High School written by Assistant Coach Michael Pollard.

The off-season for the Wildcat football team continues to move at a rapid pace. Much progress has been made and a number of plans are in the works in preparation for the 2010 season. From training to academic readiness to new talent signing up to play football the athletes have a lot to get excited about.

After school strength and speed training have been on going since the end of the 2009 season. Currently the majority of the football team has weightlifting as a class during the school day and those who don’t are expected to train after school. Every Friday the players max out on various lists in an effort to have their name put on the board in the weight room indicating "top ten" status in their class. We have been seeing approximately 35 new max figures every Friday. Speed training has been limited somewhat due to space and weather but will be in full swing as soon as basketball ends and the weather permits.

Our first group of Ironcats have begun their journey to the next level. SAT prep is underway thanks to the efforts of Pat Paruso and it is sure to be of great benefit to our athletes. Cesar Arocha, who is affiliated with the Y, is conducting Cross Fit style training for the Ironcats twice each week. Additional training is part of the preparation required of the Ironcats. Study Hall for Ironcats and all athletes is gearing up to provide after school help again shortly under the direction of our academic coach Ms. Brandi Page-Smith. We have had several of our Ironcats along with others participate in the Under Armour camp and combine recently with two of our Wildcats being noticed by ESPN’s JC Schubert.

The spring and summer are sure to be action packed as well. Spring football begins April 19 – April 30th. The Black and Gold game will be held on April 30th on the turf field at DeVaul Henderson Park. Also on the 30th a recruiting showcase will be held at RHHS from 3-5. A number of colleges will be present and area high schools are being invited to come and share player profiles, including stats, video and academic standing with several colleges at once. We anticipate some of the college recruiters to stick around for the Black and Gold game giving our guys a chance to be seen.

Our 7 on 7 will get started in June with a passing tournament every Thursday night at DeVaul Henderson. We are scheduling teams from all around to come and join us. As a grand finale to our 7 on 7 passing league we will host the first ever I-95 shootout. Three teams from Florida have confirmed and we are working on bringing in some other nationally ranked teams as well.

Camps are great opportunities to learn a lot in a short amount of time. We are scheduling two camps in addition to camp week this summer. These mini-camps will be one to two days and will be lead by the coaching staff at Valdosta State University and Wofford College of South Carolina. We are very fortunate to have these two well respected groups of coaches coming here to help develop our athletes.