Too soon for football? Mariposa’s Oliphant will postpone start of practice

Slowly the town of Mariposa is coming back to life. People have returned to their homes after the evacuation orders were lifted a week ago due to the Detwiler fire.

The massive wildfire that has burned 81,000 acres near Yosemite National Park and destroyed 63 homes is now 75 percent contained according to Calfire.

One of the families displaced when the evacuations were ordered was the family of Mariposa High football coach Ryan Oliphant. So were many of of the families of his players.

Like many people in Mariposa, Oliphant, his wife Dawniele and their sons, Brady (13) and Conor (10) were grateful to return home.

“For me, personally it was a relief,” the Grizzlies coach said. “We had been away six days, going on seven. We were ready to go home. We had a lot of cleaning up to do when we got back. We were without power for six days so everything in the fridge was bad. There was other things to cleanup, but just to go back home and spend that first night back home was a relief.”

While Oliphant is anxious to get back into his usual routine, football will have to wait.

The official start of football practice for schools in the Sac-Joaquin Section begins on Monday. With everything happening in Mariposa, Oliphant has decided to postpone the start of practice for the Grizzlies until Monday, Aug. 7

“There’s too much going on still,” he said. “They are using the high school for a lot of the victim services. A lot of our kids were displaced and are getting back into their homes. We decided it would be better to start on the seventh. We’ll have some voluntary workouts next week.”

Although his players are eager to get going, they understood the decision.

“Considering the fire and everything that is going on he had to do it,” said senior Casey Miller, who lives out of town. “I just wanted to know if my friends were OK.”

Oliphant did get to meet with most of his players this week. The coaching staff handed out gear on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen our guys since the week the of the fire,” Oliphant said. “I saw probably 70 percent of our kids. It was good to see them. It was good for them to see their teammates. It was good to think about football again. As far as I know everyone is safe.”

The Grizzlies have a bye in week zero and don’t open the season until Aug. 31 at Summerville. So the hope is that week off won’t hurt the team.

Oliphant says it’s just too soon to ask his players to focus on football. He says some of their players don’t know where their jerseys and other football gear is right now.

“The week of practice could have been beneficial for us, but now it will push us and make us want it even more,” Miller said. “We’re going to have to put 110 percent into it when we get out there. I’m excited that the football season is right around the corner. Being that it’s my senior year, I’m excited. Mariposa looks forward to those Friday nights. It’s like that with every sport there. There’s always been a lot of hometown support.”

When the team does hit the practice field, Oliphant feels football will be a good diversion.

“It’ll be good to get back into the routine,” he said. “We ended right before the start of the dead period with the seven-on-seven tournament at Modesto Junior College. We were supposed to have a team camp but that was canceled because of the fire. I think football is always a good diversion, no matter what is going on your personal life, or your home life. Football helps get everything else out of your mind for the 2 to 3 hours we’re out at practice.”

This story was originally published July 28, 2017 at 3:22 PM with the headline "Too soon for football? Mariposa’s Oliphant will postpone start of practice."