CRANSTON – Tom Milewski didn’t waste time reminding his players how fortunate they were on the first day of football practice ahead of this 2026 season.
The overcast skies above the Cranston West campus kept summer temperatures below average. This wasn’t the searing heat that usually acts as an extra challenge both physically and mentally at this time of the year.
The Falcons went through three hours of conditioning and shell drills in helmets, starting on the grass field just off the school and moving up the hill to the turf for the last 30 minutes or so. They ran tempo offense with quarterback Jonathan Leroux, a budding star who zipped left-handed spirals to perimeter weapons on both sides of the formation.
“Throughout this summer we worked on him getting a little bit more assertive on the offense,” Milewski said. “It’s shown in the last couple weeks and even today in practice. He has the command.”
Cranston West was 1-3 last season when it posted a 29-0 shutout over Cumberland. That sparked a six-game winning streak that included a 19-14 upset of La Salle, a game that helped push the Falcons into the top half of the Division I playoffs. They fell to the Rams in a semifinal rematch before beating Cranston East on Thanksgiving, closing out an 8-4 campaign.
“Last year I was a little timid,” Leroux said. “The older guys brought me up and made me better at practice. We went to the field after and we just threw a lot.”
Ethan Parent and Charlie Cornell are among the primary offensive weapons who graduated last year. Leroux continues with running back Mehkhai Taylor and a receiver group that should still include Daniel Mojica, Jake Anzivino and Ariel Ochoa. All caught passes from Leroux in a 28-14 setback against La Salle. He threw for 317 yards and accounted for two total touchdowns on that fall night at Cimini Stadium.
“He’s got a great mentality,” Milewski said. “He just goes on to the next play, the next repetition. That’s how he’s leading.”
Toll Gate looking to step up
Toll Gate football didn’t waste time starting its season.
The Warwick team opened practice on the hills behind Winman Middle School early on Monday morning. It’ll be a season of dodging construction for the Titans as the new Toll Gate High School build is fully underway on campus.
The Titans, under fourth-year coach Jim Miceli, could be heading toward a more competitive season with 40-some kids in the program. They went winless last fall, but Toll Gate has plenty of size at the line of scrimmage to showcase during home games at Warwick Vets this year.
“It feels great, I missed football,” senior Troy Desousa said. “Love to come back to it, especially my senior year. Can’t wait to ball out.
“There’s nothing like playing high school football. Nothing like it.”
As always with Division IV programs – as the state saw with Tiverton folding its varsity team last year – participation and health tend to be the determining factors for the league’s best teams. Toll Gate has the depth on its line to withstand a nine-game schedule that begins on Thursday, Sept. 10, against Scituate.
“It feels really good [to have that depth],” Geo Curtis said. “Especially because last year we weren’t so great at that. We had a lot of younger guys in there, but they came back and I think they’re ready to show up.”
“It’s nice seeing everybody show up, participate and put the work in,” Tyler Frigon said. “There’s more kids today than there’s ever been, so hopefully it will stay like that.”
Toll Gate ended practice with its defense getting reps against the scout offense before heading inside the middle school for a lifting session in the gym. The hope is that the linemen keep getting bigger and lead Toll Gate in a rebound season.
“The gym makes a football player,” Curtis said. “Being in there rough-and-rowdy with the guys is just so much fun.”
The handful of seniors on this year’s team have only won one game over the last three seasons and didn’t have a team as freshmen. None of the next three months leading up to a Thanksgiving meeting against Pilgrim will be taken for granted for that group.
“Everyone’s going to be locked in,” Kumail Javed said. “We’re looking forward to it.”
Different experiences in Providence
Over in Providence, it was business as usual – and that meant three very different things at La Salle, Central and Classical.
Year one of the Dan Koppen Era was a success, even if it ended with the Rams falling to rival Hendricken in the Super Bowl. It was clear that things were only moving forward as his second season got underway.
Koppen, the former New England Patriots star, walked onto the field with a pep in his step, joking with The Providence Journal that golf season was over and it was time for football.
While many schools across Rhode Island struggle with numbers, La Salle is not one of them. The field was split into two groups, with varsity on one side and freshmen and sophomores on another. After both sides finished warmups, they broke down and went about their work.
The varsity squad quickly got into positional groups, with assistants taking the receivers, defensive backs and linebackers as the quarterbacks warmed up. Koppen, unsurprisingly, worked with the linemen.
From 8 a.m. until 8:45 a.m., the practice ran like one you’d see at an NFL or college camp. Everything was structured and timed out. Players had ample hydration options – with La Salle’s trainer kindly asking players to return the water bottles from the same place they came – and when players needed adjustments for their helmets – or removing a fogged up visor – someone was there to do it.
It was a much different scene at Bucklin Park, the practice home of the Central football team. When The Journal arrived, only a handful of players were at the field for a practice that was already supposed to have started.
This wasn’t a case of players not showing up. Central was supposed to have a bus take them from the school to the field, but the bus never showed up. The kids who had cars made the short drive over, some used e-bikes and there was one regular bicycle at the field, but the large majority of the team made the roughly 20-minute walk from the school.
Coach Mike Washington showed up with a smile on his face and laughed when The Journal made note of the unique transportation issues. Washington talked about the approach for the season and his own personal growth, which included shaving off his trademark braids and going with the Mr. Clean look. He hid the new hairstyle – or lack thereof – with a hat, planning to unveil the look to the players after practice and explain his hopes for new beginnings for the Knights.
Classical coach Kris McCall didn’t have big plans for his first day of practice. McCall was once the fiery young coach Washington is, but is now the state’s longest tenured coach. Others have certainly coached longer and are older, but no one has been the HC for a program longer than McCall.
That didn’t stop him from being excited about the first day, texting assistant coach Vernon Crawford at 4:25 a.m. and getting an immediate response back.
“We have a lot of new kids coming back, so there’s some uneasiness with that,” McCall said. “But the first day is always kind of an adventure.”
During the 45 minutes The Journal was there, Classical went over the basics. A new-look offensive line had to learn proper huddle procedure and McCall repeatedly went over offensive formations and signals so players could start preparing to be ready to play in an offense where audibles are as common as touchdowns.
McCall then broke down the position groups with the linemen getting work, the quarterbacks warming up and the skill position players learning how to efficiently stand and burst off the line of scrimmage.
These are the details that matter and build champions. McCall, coming off a Super Bowl season, knows that – and he also knows that last year’s success doesn’t mean a thing for the 2026 season, which is what makes the whole part of Day 1 so exciting.
“It’s kind of weird,” McCall said. “You love those kids that just graduated but you get a whole bunch of new kids and you’re happy the other kids are gone.
“It’s not because ‘oh, that kid was a pain.’ It’s because I just want to see what we’ll be able to do with the new ones.”
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Excitement, anticipation, nerves as RI high school football starts up