Sports

Barring any last minute wrenches thrown into the engine, Texas High School football is on the verge of starting with pre-season scrimmages this Thursday, Aug. 20, when four area teams have scheduled action with other teams. Class 5A and 6A schools, including Ennis, don’t begin practicing until Labor Day, Sept. 7. Their scrimmages get underway a few weeks later.

Watching his nephew Laylon Spencer light up the gridiron last year invigorated Lee Spencer, or, as he put it, “He sparks me back.”

High school football hasn’t entered a season with so much doubt. Under normal conditions the month of August is consumed with football fever. Instead, year 2020 starts with lingering doubt due to the coronavirus. Eastern Ellis County’s Big 5 football teams will do their best to focus on their game while everything else may seem like a blur.

James Lockhart (6’2, 263) continues an uphill battle to make the final cut on the Pittsburgh Steelers roster this season.

Perhaps it is nostalgic or a fresh new look, but Ennis football this fall will return to the brush script look of the championship years under Head Coach Sam Harrell.