#TheMission - Season Opening Letter from Coach Weiner
Dear Plant Panthers Football Family:
It is with anxious excitement that I greet you all today. I want to disseminate a few pieces of important information, but I also want to express the enthusiasm that we all have for the onset of this special season that is about to unfold–THEMISSION2016.
Whether you are a player, a coach or support staff,a parent,a family member, or Plant Panther supporter, I want to thank you in retrospect for all you have contributed to our program in so many ways, and I also want to thank you in advance for all of the positive support you will provide our program this year.
We have a truly extraordinary group of young men who will take to the gridiron for us this fall and perform as inspiring warriors both on and off the field. Everyday, I feel absolutely blessed to coach this group. We have been relatively void of unnecessary drama and are certainly in the process of all coming together as “one heartbeat” to pull in the same direction for each other and with each other. Regardless of your relation, all of our young men deserve, desire, and need all of your support. If we can have a team, a FAMILY, in which everyone positively and profound revels in each other’s success, and in turn comforts and cares for each other in challenging moments, we will not only be impossible to beat, but we will all have a life changing experience – “48 minutes of football and a lifetime full of memories.”
To those ends, we will be doing a few special events this year throughout the season and especially in the first month of August. Be on the lookout for our fall calendar that will come out in the next week or so, but in the meantime here are some important dates and events to know that might require some attention on your part.
Not only is our schedule speckled with the typical culprits of Armwood (at Dad’s Stadium this year), Hillsborough (with their best team in years), Robinson (always a South Tampa thriller), and Sickles (a crucial road game on the way to the district championship), but this year we will have some early season excitement by traveling to Venice on August 19th for our pre-season game with the highly ranked Indians and then really hitting the road to take on the Paul W. Bryant Stampede (out of Tuscaloosa) in a Saturday special (August 27) at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Alabama. (Misty Winter will soon have information on these two games for all of our families.) Hard to beat all that excitement, and that is not even mentioning the ultimate exhilaration of the playoffs in November and state semi-finals and state championship game in December.
Please put on your calendar August 13th for our annual orientation meeting that is for everyone in our program, both varsity and junior varsity. The meeting will start at 3pm. We will also follow the meeting with varsity team picture day and a varsity team picnic.
The Mission of Plant Panthers Football is to enthusiastically work and relentlessly pursue the goal of becoming the best we can be as a person, a student, a player, and a teammate for the sake of our Plant Football Family.
And as if all that is not enough, I am proud to announce that we are going to do something during our fall training camp that we have never done before and, as far as I know, something that has never been done in Hillsborough County. On August 4-6 (Thursday-Saturday, Days 4-6 of fall camp), we are going to take our kids to Vero Beach at the Historic Dodgertown Facility for three amazing days of practice and team-building. Our players and coaches and staff will stay right there on site in hotel-style bungalows. We will have practice all three days and various fellowship and team-building activities fitting of THE MISSION 2016. This endeavor will cost $200 per person. We are asking that all parents that can afford this to please pay for your own child and also to consider paying for another player(s) who could otherwise not afford it and/or to pay for a coach to support our staff. If you cannot afford the $200 at this time, please send in what you can. The price for this event for our players and coaches includes our two nights lodging and three “all you can eat” meals each day, as well as access to all their amazing facilities for practice, locker room, and recreation. If you would like to sponsor this event beyond paying for your own child, please let Misty and me know.
We will also need a sponsor for the chartered busses to and from Vero Beach. This will be one of the most incredible events we have ever done with our players and coaches so I thank you in advance for your support of this. We ask that payments be sent in as soon as possible.
We really have the makings of something transcendent this year. I thank you for being a huge part of THE MISSION 2016.
ALWAYS A LINK:
Coach Robert J. Weiner
