NATCHEZ &8212; For Adams County Christian School football players, this summer has been a whole new ballgame.

After years of a laissez-faire approach to off-season workouts, the Rebels have hit the weight room hard since May.

&8220;We&8217;re trying to add more Olympic-style lifts to get more speed and more strength-building,&8221; said assistant coach Josh Loy, who has handled the off-season conditioning all summer. &8220;Some had never lifted before, so in a way we&8217;ve kind of had to start from scratch.&8221;

Loy has been in charge in the weight room all summer due to the illness of head coach Bobby Marks, who has missed much of the off-season while undergoing radiation treatments.

&8220;I&8217;m driving back and forth to Alexandria every day,&8221; Marks said. &8220;I&8217;m going to finish up about six days before football starts. The doctor says I&8217;ll be a little weak for the first ballgame. Right now I feel pretty strong. The kids are working hard. Some are playing baseball, but the majority of them are there working. Coach Loy is doing a great job.&8221;

Marks said he planned to join the Rebels in the next week or so to help with running drills.

&8220;I&8217;m going to get in it next week and start working on the timing drills,&8221; Marks said. &8220;I&8217;m going to start driving up there. My son is going to help us this year. The afternoons I can&8217;t get here during the preseason he&8217;s going to help me. We&8217;re going to work Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We&8217;ve been doing that for a while and it really pays off. We may run 30 40(yard-dashes)&8217;s. If a kid runs a 4.8 or a 4.9 we can get him down to a 4.6 or a 4.7. That&8217;s the way it&8217;s been for a while.&8221;

Loy said the weight room regimen was pretty well set each day.

&8220;We start off with some stretching and running and try to get two Olympic lifts a day,&8221; he said. &8220;We do squats twice, bench press twice, and some alternative lifts. We tried to do things like this before, but with so many coaching changes it was tough.&8221;

Josh Calcott, a senior Rebel, said he could tell he was making progress over the past month.

&8220;I missed a couple of weeks on vacation,&8221; Calcott said. &8220;It was really hard at first, especially after the vacation, but it&8217;s getting easier and easier each time. I can feel myself getting in better shape and getting stronger. We were really surprised that we&8217;d be doing this this year, since we hadn&8217;t done it on a mandatory basis before. But it&8217;s working out.&8221;