Potomac opens its season with first practice

By Dave Fawcett

Published: August 1, 2008

Tony Lilly woke up at 1 a.m. Friday to let his new puppy outside, hoping the moment would clear his mind. It didn’t work.
With only six hours to go until the start of football practice at Potomac High School, Lilly’s restless spirit remained intact.
The Panthers’ head coach tried to go back to sleep, but it was pointless. So by 4 a.m., he gave up and decided to fill the remaining time by turning on the TV and watching the 1977 movie “Smokey and the Bandit,” before heading to Potomac.
“Burt Reynolds,” joked an exhausted Lilly in referring to the movie’s star, while sweat beads dripped down his face following the end of Potomac’s first day back on the field under sweltering conditions. “You can’t go wrong with that.”
As a high school, college and NFL player and now as a coach, Lilly has always looked forward to the start of practice and all the possibilities that come with a fresh beginning. The only difference between playing and coaching for Lilly is that now as the head man he’s more nervous about making sure all the parts are off and running without too many complications.
“The big key is we’re moving,” Lilly said.
Although most of Prince William County’s high schools won’t start their football practices until next week, Lilly saw no point in waiting.
With the Panthers’ first scrimmage 13 days away and their regular-season opener on Aug. 28th, Lilly wanted to get a head start in working out the kinks as the defending Cardinal District champions look to fill some key positions with untested players.
Last year, Potomac finished 13-1 and advanced to the Group AAA Division 5 state final in large part behind the play of skill players and two-way threats like Mulku Kalokoh, Darius Brent and Abdul Kanneh, kicker Eric Dobratz and lineman George Bansah, all of whom have since graduated.
Kalokoh and Brent both rushed for over 1,000 yards last season, while Kanneh caught eight touchdown passes.
Defensively, Brent finished as the team’s leading tackler, while Kalokoh and Kanneh anchored the secondary.
Dobratz and Kanneh were all-Group AAA selections, while Kalokoh was a second-team pick.
On Friday, Dobratz and another former Potomac standout, Deante Steele, worked out by themselves in preparation for football practice next week at Shepherd University.
The two did jump in at times to encourage the Potomac players, but they still represented the Panthers’ past, one that has posted a 24-3 record over the last two years.
While having more depth this season than past Panther teams and still returning key players on the line as well as at quarterback with junior DeAirius Thomas, Potomac will have to sift through a number of new faces to find the right combination.
As the offense ran some plays Friday, Lilly made his points loud and clear from the start as he encouraged and warned, depending on what the situation called for.
“This isn’t a debate,” Lilly barked as the offense paused before running one of its plays.
This was followed up by an “Atta boy, good block” to a “You don’t finish your blocks, you won’t play for me this year” comment later on.
He even had to remind his kickers, while they sat on the sidelines, to get involved in some of the drills.
“This ain’t no country club,” Lilly said.
The team finished the second morning session by doing something Lilly calls the “county fair,” which has the players rotate in groups among different stations stretched across the field to do various agility drills.
Lilly said he will do this for the first two days before it will be time to do something different, but for now, he wanted the players in sync.
To finish things up Friday, Lilly ordered the players to run from their stations and form eight lines in 40 seconds. Lilly warned them that if they didn’t come together in that time he would make them regroup and this time give them only 30 seconds to get organized. They didn’t make it the first time, forcing Lilly to blow his whistle and telling them to do it again.
“I don’t hear you clapping,” Lilly said as he kept on the players even after they successfully got in line on their second try.
Lilly gave his team a pre-season tune-up last month when he took 17 of his players down to South Carolina for a 20-team 7-on-7 National Passing Tournament hosted by Byrnes High School. Byrnes, which will be looking for its sixth state title this season in the last seven seasons, offered a great opportunity for the Potomac players to see an area of the country where the football talent is deep, the atmosphere intense and the competition eye opening.
Potomac went 3-4 in pool play and lost its first two games in the double-elimination round to finish 12th overall, but Lilly felt the experience there served its purpose: the Panthers, he emphasized, cannot afford to rest on their laurels from the past two seasons.
Now on Friday, it was time to take the next step in driving that point home. Lilly saw things he liked and some things that clearly needed work. He credited his assistants with helping the first day run smoothly as some of the players adjusted to their new surroundings.
But there was little time for rest.
Although he was working Friday on practically no sleep, Lilly said he planned after practice to meet with his coaches to go over Saturday’s game plan, which will focus on defense. That, he hopes, will help narrow down more where certain players fit as the Panthers look to replace eight starters.
Then he was hoping to head home for a nap, after which he planned to go out for dinner with his son Ryan.
With his wife Lisa in Pennsylvania visiting her sister, Lilly will have more time to ponder his next practice without worrying that he’s disturbing anyone in his house with his nocturnal wanderings other than his new puppy.
But knowing himself like he does, Lilly already had his next football-related move planned for Friday evening before even doing it. There was no way around it, not at this point of the year.
“When I get home, I will sit down with a clipboard before I go to bed,” Lilly said.
If, of course, he ever makes it to bed.