New era at TCA: first 11-man practice today as school heads into TAPPS

It was a different feel around the Trinity Christian Academy football practice field this morning.

Today marks the first day of a new era at TCA as it enters into the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) conference.

This morning both the TCA Eagles football team and Lady Eagles volleyball team began workouts for their respective sports in 2016.

While the Lady Eagles volleyball practice looked the same as usual, the Eagles were stepping into the 11-man game for the first time in school history.

TCA head coach Joe Hamstra, who was brought to TCA to lead the transition from six-man football to 11 man, said making the transition will be a slow process, especially in the first week of practices.

“In the first days of practice we will have a lot of individual fundamental work, and what we will do before we take the field is get on the chalkboard and give them the big picture,” Hamstra. “Then we will go from the big picture to small parts and we will each coach are parts. Then we will come as a team and piece it together and hopefully we will look pretty clean.

“We are helmets only for the first three days, but we will still do some scrimmage against blocking bags because we want the kids to learn how the parts fit with the whole. We will introduce it, we will break it up in our smaller pieces, and we will come together and hopefully they will understand what the big picture is supposed to look like.”

The Eagles first scrimmage will be at 10 a.m. on Aug. 12 at Frost.