It’s hot here on a practice field just outside of Pen Air Field on an early August afternoon. The kind of hot that requires multiple water breaks over the course of two hours and popsicles at the end of practice.
And yet, the University of West Florida football team pushes through the brutal summer heat and stifling humidity.
The University of West Florida men’s basketball team has added two coaches to its staff for the 2023-24 season.
Former Navarre hoops assistant and Raider alum Tyler Welch is joining the staff along with Justin Mann, a former head coach at Independence Community College in Kansas.
Nate Hanson runs his route and quickly makes another big play for a touchdown during a 7-on-7 against
Choctaw last month at Hurlburt Field.
Hanson didn’t get a ton of opportunities to make plays like that a season ago, but things just seem different for him this year as he gears up for his senior season with the Navarre Raiders.
Devin Wright attacks a defensive drill with all-out effort on a sweltering August morning on the University of West Florida campus.
This is year two in college football for Wright, but the first where he hopes to get on the field and showcase his ability after a redshirt season in 2022.
Adreahna Busch dribbles the soccer ball during a one-on-one drill in practice on one of those early August mornings that makes you feel like you are standing in the center of a camp fire.
She uses her skill to get past a defender, which isn’t a surprise as her coach at Pensacola State, Mark Yepshin, says the former Navarre Raider is ‘really, really nifty with her feet.’
Amanda Dodson used to play softball. She even won a state championship while in high school in Kansas.
But when she moved to Florida, she decided to shift her focus. And it turned out to be a pretty good decision.
Mark Yepshin has two young children. One just turned 3. The other is a little over a year. So when his name was mentioned as a possible head coach for the first women’s soccer program in Pensacola State history, he had to make sure his wife was on board.
