By Jim Henry

jhenry@joplinglobe.com

Who likes the first day of full contact ... the high school coaches or the players?

“It’s hard to say,” Diamond head coach Derek Scroggins said. “Normally it’s the coaches, but the kids are real fired up. They’ve been waiting to strap on the pads and hit people. They went at it pretty well today. They worked hard for us.”

The Wildcats begin workouts with 33 players for Scroggins, who comes to Diamond after being head coach at Northeast High School in Arma, Kan., the last two years.

“On Friday we’ll have a little scrimmage to see what we have,” he said. “(Thursday) we split the teams ... half starters, half non-starters. The line play was a little sloppy, but they worked hard to improve. The kids seemed to like the contact.”

Seneca’s first day in full pads coincided with the first day of school.

“We started off pretty good,” Indians head coach Rob Townsend said. “We worked through some lulls in practice, which usually happens the first day of school. They came through that and ended up on a pretty good note.”

Like most schools, the Indians’ first day of contact included the “Oklahoma Drill,” a one-on-one hitting drill.

“Kids have a good time with that,” Townsend said. “We did lots of hitting today. They are ready for hitting after being in half-pads for a week of camp and three more days of practice.”

“The kids who know what’s going on really like it,” Miller head coach Harv Welch said. “The younger kids are a little intimidated. We try to keep the young kids and new kids against each other and the older kids and bigger kids against each other to make it competitive.

“We’ll do about 20 minutes of it, make it intense and fun, which is hard to do, but the kids get into it.”

In Oklahoma, high school players will have their first day of full pads today after starting fall camp on Tuesday.

“Probably the coaches are more anxious,’ Commerce head coach Willie Ng said. “I think sometimes the kids are a little apprehensive. They get tired of the basic fundamental drills we work on... there is a lot of brain work right now. They get hungry, and right now our group is excited and ready to go.”

Ng said the Tigers’ practice today will include both team and individual tackling, an OU drill, then a short break before team offense and team defense.