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Football: City Section teams getting sweaty

Los Angeles Times staff writer Ben Bolch
By Ben Bolch
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Today marks the official start of football practice for City Section teams, which raises this question: Are players really ever out of season these days?

Between winter and spring conditioning, summer passing leagues ... one wonders when this alleged off-season some people mention takes place. Many players hang out in their school’s weight room, run on the track and play in pickup games when coaches are not allowed to hold organized practices.

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That makes days like today more of a formality than anything else. Most players have been training for the 2009 season practically from the day their 2008 season ended.

--Ben Bolch

Varsity Times Insider
Ben Bolch

Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. He is serving his second stint as the UCLA beat writer, which seems fitting since he has covered almost every sports beat except hockey and horse racing. Bolch is also the author of the recently released book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” He previously covered UCLA basketball from 2010-11 before going on to cover the NBA and the Clippers for five years. He happily traded in gobs of hotel points and airline miles to return to cover UCLA basketball and football in the summer of 2016. Bolch was once selected by NBA TV’s “The Starters” as the “Worst of the Week” after questioning their celebrity journalism-style questions at an NBA All-Star game and considers it one of his finer moments.

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