He comes to practice with a big old lunch pail and sweats on.

Desi never missed a practice or a game. And when players were held over in practice for extra drills, Desi stayed and did the drills with them.

The first practice is always exciting and we're all pumped and ready to get in the swing of things. We'll use the preseason practices to help us come together as a team and gain some team chemistry going into the first series of the year against San Diego.

It was just a matter of the first half of the practice wearing all the rust off but I think overall we got done what we wanted to. There was a lot of excitement and everybody was eager to get back. We weren't in full pads but everybody wanted to get out and hit the first day but we know we can't do that. It was a pretty energetic practice.

He's a good kid with a good head on his shoulders. He works hard every day in practice. He's a two-year captain. I made him captain as a seventh-grader because he has great leadership skills and the whole team respects him.

It was pretty tough. I had no one to practice with, and it was just Coach beating up on me. I was the only one at school not eating lunch, so it was kind of tough doing that by yourself.