This year, FHC’s football playoff run was a great one. The team made it all the way to the state finals. Uniquely and unfortunately, the historic run carried over into the first week of basketball tryouts. A week-and-a-half delay in the tryouts schedule caused problems for the coaches and players alike as many football players are prospective varsity basketball players. Luckily, tryouts happened, rosters have been set, and the program is quickly approaching its first games. Despite some adversity, multiple football players successfully made the varsity team and are tunnel focused on the upcoming basketball season. The question that will soon be answered is whether this delay will affect the teams’ performances in the first stages of the competitive season.

Second-year player and junior Jonas Vanderwoude had this to say regarding his thoughts about the start of the varsity season.”I’m not concerned. We already have plenty of chemistry, and we are a very hard-working team. We can make up the time that we lost.”

Most teams have already been practicing for a week together, and it is safe to say that they probably already know their starters even. One would think that they would have a slight advantage over the Rangers; however, another element added to the fold that may make a slight advantage an even larger one is the fact that FHC football players are coming from one season and immediately into another season without any downtime to relax. This immediate transition post-football could potentially have a hard impact on the body. Junior basketball and football player J Coe spoke on this current issue concerning how he personally felt during tryouts. “My body was hurting and tired, but I feel like I was still vocal and played well.”

The varsity team played a scrimmage on Saturday, December 3, which tested some of the hypotheses of how the players would react. Leading up to the scrimmage, the team had three hard practices. To the eyes of the players and spectators alike, the team seemed to be amiss during the first quarter, but as the game progressed, the Rangers “fell into a groove” according to one player and played well for the three remaining quarters. Although the team ended up losing by nine points to Zeeland West, the team played well; ultimately, the first quarter was chalked up to the lack of practice time together leading up to the game.

“I do not think the football team’s deep run will hurt our chemistry,” junior point guard Brady Miller added. “We have all played together and know each others’ games. If anything, the team will gain some intensity from the football players.”

No one knows what the overall impact will be in both the short- and long term. No one thinks the chemistry will be harmed, but physical health is just if not more a possible factor. The first real test of many will be when the Rangers have a matchup on Friday, December 9, as they travel to take on Thornapple-Kellogg.