A new coaching era for high school football is now underway at Wellington High School. Longtime area head football coach Pete Walker — who has coached at Clewiston High School, Glades Day School and the King’s Academy — is now in charge of leading the Wolverines football program.
Throughout the summer, the Wellington football team has been meeting three or four mornings a week at the high school to work on getting fitter, stronger, faster and, as a result, better.
“During our summer workouts, we have been spending an hour on speed work and conditioning. Then, we’d spend another hour inside lifting weights in our effort to get stronger for the upcoming season,” Walker said. “It has been a great summer of workouts for our team.”
The highlight of the summer was the chance to play in a series of controlled scrimmages in a Fellowship of Christian Athletes-sponsored team camp in mid-July at Lake Lytal Park in West Palm Beach. The Wolverines were joined by a number of other high school teams from Seminole Ridge High School, Park Vista High School, Jupiter Christian School, Vero Beach High School and reigning FHSAA Class 6A state champion West Boca Raton High School.
Walker expects this year’s starting quarterback to be the same as last year — senior Jonathan Paul.
Walker expects his players to do their best in every practice and every game.
“I want our players to play hard, play as a team and to compete at the highest level,” Walker said.
The official start of fall practice begins on Monday, July 28. The Wolverines open up their season with a kickoff classic preseason game on Friday, Aug. 15 at Suncoast High School. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wellington has its season-opener on the road against Centennial High School in Port St. Lucie on Thursday, Aug. 21. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.
Walker, 59, has a career coaching record of 190-72. During his years coaching high school football, he has led his teams to 21 state playoff appearances. While coaching at Glades Day School in Belle Glade, the Gators won state championships in 2006 (Class 1A), 2009 (Class 1B) and 2010 (Class 1B).
