Liberty set to open up fall camp Monday with new coach Gerald Tranquille at the helm

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) -Area high school football teams are getting set to start their respective fall camps Monday. And one of the coaches working in a new, yet familiar environment this fall is Gerald Tranquille. He is now the head coach at Liberty. That after he moved back east from Vernon, where he’d spent the previous five seasons. I say moved back because coach Tranquille is a 2000 Liberty graduate. So he’s back home in Bristol. And he’s anxious to get back on the field for the start of fall camp Monday. That after what he calls a productive series of summer workouts with the Bulldogs!

“We’ve been going Monday through Thursday.” coach Tranquille told me in a Zoom interview Thursday. “In June we went in the morning. We’d go about an hour in the weight room, and then I’d switch groups. One being inside, the other being outside. And then we would get together and do some team bonding stuff. Some different type of conditioning stuff. We’ve been doing that since June. We gave them the Fourth of July week off. And then in the second week of July we started going in the afternoon, slowly started getting them adjusted to the heat. So we’re going to be OK by the time we put on helmets on Monday. So great participation, about 90% most of the summer.”

The Bulldogs coming off a real bounce-back season, 9-3 under coach Greg Jordan, who then moved back to Blountstown in the off season. So there is some momentum for coach Tranquille as Monday approaches. The coach telling me he’s feeling pumped about starting up, and he’s hoping that feeling carries over to the players.

“We’ve been ramping up.” says the coach “I told the kids if my attitude changes, if I get a little snappy, a little itchy, you know it’s getting close. And I told them I hope that bled over to them. I hope they feel excited because here in a week or two we get ready to go up there for the officials scrimmage and play two quarters. I mean it’s here, it’s on us. I tell them now it’s time for the anticipation and the anxiety and all of that to start pumping, the adrenaline to start pumping, gearing up for Monday. We’re definitely excited, definitely ready to go.”

The Bulldogs will take part in an officials scrimmage with three or four other area teams on the 12th. They’ll play a preseason classic the following week and open the regular season at home against Vernon on the 26th.

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