A rich tradition continued at the King’s Fork High School football stadium at the end of Aug. 7 and beginning of Aug. 8.

The Bulldogs were allowed to don pads for the first time this year, facing off in hitting drills and team offense/team defense sets before a crowd under the Friday night lights.

It was the King’s Fork football program’s annual Midnight Madness practice, and Bulldogs coach Joe Jones estimated about 200 people came out to watch, despite the threat of rain, which had poured generously in the early evening on Aug. 7.

“Man, loved the crowd,” Jones said. “That pumps the guys up so much. That gives them a little more incentive when they’re doing drills and there’s all those people watching them, and they’re one-on-one with somebody.”

Jones and his staff are at a point in the preseason where they are watching performances closely to see who will make the team and how they should arrange names on the depth chart.

Jones said some players showed him capabilities he had not seen from them before.

“Some showed their aggressiveness, some kind of confirmed what we’ve known in the past — they were pretty aggressive, and you can tell they were used to this,” he said. “Some of the new ones, they were a little wide-eyed, but once you get the first couple hits, you either love it or hate it. And I was pleased with the effort and the aggressiveness and guys getting after each other. That’s what it’s about.”

Getting after each other is something players look forward to.

“You’ve got that opponent that’s been talking trash all week, and then that first day you get a chance to hit, you just blow them off the line in front of everybody,” said rising senior cornerback/slotback Quadarius Boyd. “It just gives you this feeling that makes you feel like you’re a man.”

He noted, good-naturedly, that he made a point to get after rising senior wide receiver/defensive back Trashaun Delk.

Asked who he finally got to go against, rising senior linebacker/feature back Notorious Brown said with a smile and bravado, “Well, Deshaun Wethington, went against him a little bit.” Nearby, Wethington responded, “Got what you wanted.”

Some, like rising senior outside linebacker/wide receiver Terry Tubbs, grew in their appreciation for the Midnight Madness experience this year.

“Last year, I didn’t do as much because I was a new guy, so this is my first year actually getting into all the drills and stuff, so it was actually fun,” Tubbs said. “This being my senior year and all, it means a lot.”

“Midnight Madness has just been a great experience every time I’ve been here,” Brown said. “It’s basically an eye-opener of what’s coming up in the season.”

Boyd noted it helps the team form a brotherly bond, and Wethington echoed those thoughts.

“Like Coach says, it’s a tradition,” he said.

For the players, their day at King’s Fork on Aug. 7 got started at 3 p.m. The team practiced from then until 6 p.m.

At 7 p.m., there was a parent meeting, players got to rest and then the booster club had a cookout for them.

The alumni flag football game, originally scheduled for 10 to 11 p.m., was canceled due to inclement weather, but Jones has not given up on having it this preseason.

“We’ll try to do that maybe in a week or two,” he said.

The Midnight Madness practice ran from about 11:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., but players were not sent home in the middle of the night. They spent the night in the school with sleeping bags and air mattresses.

“They’ll be here ‘til 8 tomorrow morning, and some of them will sleep, some of them will play video games all night and sit up and talk,” Jones said.

Then they get back to work on Monday.