Football off to a flying start, thanks to drone

This year the varsity football team has had an extra teammate during practices. Senior Dartagnan Cantwell has been on the sidelines during practices piloting a drone. Cantwell was asked to pilot and film with the drone by the head coach Adam Reinking. 

“The head varsity football coach asked me if I was willing to come out and fly a drone to help film our football practices,” Cantwell said.

The team has plenty of time to watch and review the footage during their convenient 4th period football class. This allows them to not waste any precious practice time. This also allows them to become more efficient with everyone on the same page before they get to the field to practice. Junior Austin Zamora watches the film daily to help improve not only his play but also his teammates’ play.

“We get to watch ourselves during fourth period, which we have a football class where we can see what we’re doing good and what we need to improve on,” Zamora said.

The film provided by the drone has completely changed how the football team watches their football practice. It allows them to watch film of their practices instead of previously only being able to watch their games.

“We review it pretty much daily, whatever we did Monday we review on Tuesday, and sometimes it could even be just a couple hours later it will be posted for us to watch, and then we’ll just watch it on our own,” Zamora said.

The football team having this drone is a major improvement for the team and the way they play during not only practice but games as well. This was clearly observable in their first game where they absolutely demolished their rivals Oakmont with a 49 to 0 absolute blowout.

As the football team watches the film it gives them a chance to watch how their teammates play allowing them to become better as a team and grow their chemistry and teamwork skills. 

“With us being able to watch each other we can see what happened during practice and so that can help us with the next practice or next game,” Zamora said.

The investment from the coach has truly paid off allowing the football team to drastically improve. The drone did not come out of the teams pocket however  instead Coach Reinking made the decision to buy the drone as an investment into the team.

“It’s a really good investment. It’s going to be able to help us get better as a team and as a program,” Zamora said.