HELENA — The fact that it’s not high school football season yet hasn’t stopped the Helena High football program from tackling its need for new equipment.
The Bengals’ head football coach, Dane Broadhead, joked that some of his team’s equipment predates the invention of the forward pass.
“As you can see, it’s a little antiquated,” Broadhead said about a six-man sled his team uses for practice drills. “Some of the newer technology that’s out in terms of sleds and different pieces of equipment that we’re looking at would be a big upgrade to what we have and really benefit our guys and coaches.”
Accordingly, Broadhead and his coaching staff created a GoFundMe page to raise the money needed to buy a Roger's two-man tek sled estimated at $5,000 to purchase.
“It’s a huge purchase. It's a lot of money,” Broadhead said. “Like I said, equipment costs have gone up. It’s kind of a high-tech piece of football equipment, if you will. It’s just expensive.”
Broadhead said the new sled will help his players build strength, agility and teamwork during standard practice drills. But ultimately, he said, having a good sled is just a good way to improve player safety.
“Just one of those things that’s really nice because we don’t have to have bodies on bodies,” Broadhead said. “You’re working on a sled and not pushing each other around and getting dinged up in the process of your everyday drill work.”
The team’s need to rely on community donations to purchase the new sled is not a product of Helena Public Schools’ recent budget cuts, Broadhead said. Instead, the fundraiser was more the result of a timing issue.
“I don’t necessarily know if it has to do with budget cuts and where we’re at with the budget coming in,” Broadhead said. “We really didn’t look at it until we went to team camp, kind of late in the budget cycle. And it’s a long time until we fundraise again this fall. It really wasn’t in the cards to go to our budget and allot for it.”
Community members wishing to support the Bengals’ fundraiser can access the GoFundMe page here.
