Hermantown Football Opens First Day of Practice With Annual Hawk Olympics

The Hawks open the 2021 season on Sept. 3 hosting Moose Lake/Willow River. Kickoff is set for 6:00 p.m. 

HERMANTOWN, Minn. – Things feel normal again in Northern Minnesota as high school football practices are officially underway.

“It’s good to be back out here and on time. It was definitely easier to get after it and get to work knowing that we’ll have a season. Last year we never knew if the season was going to happen so it was hard to be excited for it,” Hermantown senior fullback/linebacker Jonah Helget said.

“You kind of forget what it was like before COVID so to see these kids come out and be excited about playing football again and to get some normalcy back is a great feeling,” Hermantown head coach Mike Zagelmeyer added.

For over 20 years, Hermantown spends the first day holding the Hawk Olympics, seeing who’s in shape and ready to start the season, while also bringing out some friendly competition.

“A lot of times, football players are really worried about that day one, it scares people off. We try to make it more inviting and more fun, and I think that helps with the kids because that’s what we’re all about,” Zagelmeyer said.

“Everyone just competes so all of these younger kids see us working so they just want to work harder. We just want to get that top three so we can get that shirt,” quarterback Michael Lau added.

The Hawks are bringing back experience at their skill positions, especially under center with Lau at quarterback.

“I think we’ll be a lot more prepared for every game and we have a lot of new stuff that we’re going to be doing so we’re excited,” Lau said.

“They’ve been through some really rough adversity last year. I think they know how important the high school speed is compared to what it was a couple years ago whether they were playing JV football or anything so to have that experience at the skill position and know what they need to do to get open or to run the way we want them to run, that experience is awesome,” Zagelmeyer added.

Hermantown finished last year’s shortened season on a four-game winning streak and are now looking to build off of that success.

“That’s going to be really helpful to go off of a winning streak and hopefully try to keep that moving and win every game,” Helget said.

“Just win and get to state,” Lau added.

Hermantown opens the 2021 season on Sept. 3 hosting Moose Lake/Willow River. Kickoff is set for 6:00 p.m.