New Hope Touchdown Club

Trojan Football Field Work Day on Saturday June 14

About 30-40 volunteers accomplished all the spraying, mowing, string-trimming, and clean-up that was planned in a time span of about 2.5 hours.  Thanks to all for the great turnout which made the long and arduous job relatively quick and easy.

Anyone who is not currently receiving the New Hope Touchdown Club emails can subscribe by sending an email to doc(at)newhopetrojans.com.  You can also subscribe to cell phone text message alerts by sending the text nhfb to 41411, or navigate your web browser to our textmarks signup page.

Planning for the coming year and the 2008 budget were the focus points for the May 19th meeting.

Expenditures discussed were:  completing the ‘players room’ in the field house, pre and post game meals, halftime snacks,  charter buses for the W Lauderdale game, a fryer for the concession stand, the mower note and mower maintenance, insurance, senior jerseys, pregame fireworks, preseason team building camp, and concession stand startup.  The top 3 priority items were players meals, concession stand start up, and the senior jerseys.

Income items discussed were:  concessions, mighty mite football, fence signs, program ads, and reserve seating.

Nominations for officers were discussed.  The group decided to accept nominations from the membership for President, VP, and sec-treasurer for the coming year, with the nomination process ending on June 4th.  The election is planned for the June 16th meeting.   We will use the time from June 4 to June 16th to contact nominees regarding their willingness to be on the slate.  You may email your nominations to doc(AT)newhopetrojans.com.

Coach’s report: 

The spring game at Pontotoc was very beneficial in evaluating the status of our program from the top down.  Coach Bradley outlined a number of changes he plans, some of which he has already implemented.

Summer weight lifting program begins June 2nd.  The weight room however is open daily in May.  The Trojan Field House phone is 244 4727.

A preseason team building camp was discussed at Crow’s Neck in Tishomingo County.

The football field needs some attention and a Saturday work day at the field was set for June 14th.

The school sports budget was discussed with the group adopting a proposal to hear from the school leadership at the next meeting.

The crawfish fundraiser at Market Street was a great success.  We sold out at 3:30pm on Saturday.

A very special thanks to all the volunteers who participated.  Without the adequate numbers of volunteers we had it would have not been the fun and interesting fundraiser it turned out to be.  Special thanks to Paul, Derrick and George for handling all the planning.

For those who weren’t able to participate,  we used Mudbugs’ cooking trailer with a 160 gallon pot for cooking 150 lbs of crawfish at a time.  Other cookers were set up for boiling corn and taters.  Volunteers washed crawfish, dipped crawfish onto plates, tonged up corn and taters onto the plates, took customer orders, made change as well as helped set up and take down the site. 

The club heard from Coach Bradley a number of issues regarding spring practice.

Spring practice begins Monday April 28th.  Practice will start at 3:30pm and end about 6pm on monday, tuesday and thursday.  Wednesday practice will start at 2pm and end about 5pm.  Unless issues arise which require additional practices, there will be no friday practices.  MHSAA prescribes the number of days allowed in pads, so some practices will be in shorts focusing on conditioning and nonhitting drills. 

The spring game is scheduled for friday May 16th at 5:30pm versus Shannon but will be at Pontotoc High School in Pontotoc, Mississippi.

Coach Bradley stressed that some players are struggling with grades and he urged parents to get involved with their child’s academic success.  Classroom performance is a requirement for participation in sports, and focus on grades the next few weeks are absolutely essential for success in the fall.  During spring practice we want all players to maintain proper attention to their classroom work.

Free Physicals for 2008 football will be provided again this year by Rehab at Work, Columbus Orthopedic Clinic, and Baptist Memorial Hospital.  These free physicals for high school athletes will be provided on one date only and that is Saturday June 21st at the Baptist Hospital Golden Triangle outpatient pavillion.  Those conducting these free physicals have asked for pre-registration of participants by filling out their information and release forms and returning these to Coach Bradley before May 16th.  After all the forms are turned in we will be scheduled a time to be at the hospital outpatient pavillion for the exams.  Watch for the scheduled time on this site.   The free physical forms are downloadable here (HTML format)- page 1, page 2, page 3.  (Adobe acrobat pdf format on New Hope Football.com.  (Using Internet Explorer, use the print preview option under “File” in order to shrink the image so the entire form page prints on one page of paper without being cut off)

The summer workout program will begin on June 2nd.  Prior to June 2nd the weight room will be available for lifting sessions, but between the end of the spring semester and June 2nd, there will be no required sessions.  Twenty lifting and conditioning sessions are required between June 2nd and August 1st, with 30-32 days available to lift.  These sessions will run about 1-1.5 hours.  Weight room hours will be from 9am until 6pm monday through thursday.  The summer workout program is vital for success in the fall and is a must for a player’s acclimation to the coming August heat for safe and effective late summer preseason practices.

The Touchdown Club President asked for all those willing to help with the Market Street Fundraiser to please contact him via email: guerryp(at)gmail.com.  We will be selling crayfish plates with potato and corn on the cob with Mudbugs doing the cooking and our volunteers scooping the vittles onto the plates and handling the sales using Mudbugs cooking trailer setup.  We will not be handling drinks since the concession for all drinks is awarded to only one vendor.  We will be selling Friday May 2nd and Saturday May 3rd.

Club finances and all the items and activities the Club bankrolls were presented.  The Touchdown Club is very active in supporting New Hope Football.  We buy pre- and post-game meals for the team, buy the home jerseys, award the seniors with their home jersey post-season, hold a football banquet, assist with field, stadium, weight room, and fieldhouse maintenance.  The TD Club income is generated mostly through the volunteer activities of the club members at the home concession stand during pee wee, junior varsity and varsity games, and through other fundraising activities such as the booth at Market Street and ad sales for the football program.

A fall football drawing is one of this years fundraising projects.  We’re planning on a series of drawings this fall to win a 100 gallon gas card along with tickets to a college football game.  The games are Ole Miss at Alabama, Ms State at Alabama, and Ms State at Ole Miss.  Further details TBA.