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The Poeboy Society puts on a show at Underground Pub Saturday, April 19.
With a guiding hand, new California football head coach Mikel Gragg hopes to get the Pintos back on track this upcoming season.
Gragg, a 31-year-old native of Nevada, moved to California last month. He enters his first year as California's head coach after Marty Albertson resigned last year after six seasons as head coach. This season the team will focus on redeeming themselves after going 2-8 last season. According to Gragg, the toughness of the team both mentally and physically has been emphasized during their time together.
"It starts in the weight room and getting stronger and lifting, and just having that toughness mentality," Gragg said. "We're here, we're ready to play football and just being mentally tough and coming out and playing football is what we've been talking about."
Gragg faced a tough choice in coming to California as he left his previous coaching job at Scotland County where in two seasons he led the team to a 14-9 record, including an appearance to the Class 1 district semifinals last year.
Before his time at Scotland County, Gragg was the defensive coordinator at Diamond High School for six years. Proximity to family and California's rich football tradition were both factors in his choice to coach the Pintos and teach weightlifting. Gragg will also be an assistant coach for the girls basketball team, a position he also had at Scotland County.
Gragg played offensive line at Missouri Southern from 2004 to 2006 and he's learned a lot about coaching from his time as a player.
"I still use the same philosophies that my college coaches used," Gragg said. "As far as coaching goes, a lot of it is from coach (John) Ware from Missouri Southern, he's got a huge influence with me and I use his same messages to the kids. I'm getting 1 percent better every day."
Gragg enjoys the bonds that can be made during football and he looks forward to being a helpful figure to the young players as they go through high school.
"It's the relationships that get built between players and coaches, players and players," Gragg said. "That's the biggest thing, those bonds that last a lifetime. As a coach being able to develop a young boy into a young man and watch him grow through the course of four years into his future life, for me that's what it's about."
With being a former player, Gragg has a unique way of looking at situations with his players as he can relate to their mindset. This has given him a better understanding on how to approach different players in different ways in order to get the most out of them.
"Just knowing how each player reacts to you being intense with them or how with another player you have to be a little softer with them. There are so many different aspects as a player you don't realize that," Gragg said. "Each kid is different so it's figuring out how each kid reacts to different situations and as a coach you're always learning about your players."
A big expectation the team has under Gragg is to be competitive every game and to not get blown out of any game this season. There has been an increased focus on the team's level of intensity during their camps.
"We're going to come in and we're going to compete as hard as we can this first year and see how that goes," Gragg said. "We know it is tough trying to install a new offense, a new defense and trying to get that gel between players and coaches, especially early on and it is going to progress as the season goes."