This year the locker room door has a new look designed to encourage full effort from the team.

Because I’m not on the team and thus not subject to the disapproval of the coaches — or at least not subject to the exhausting consequences of that disapproval — I’d be tempted to bring a box of all laundry detergent to give for Chelsea today.

In light of that, if the coaches weren’t already glad I’m neither athletic nor in high school, I’m sure they are now.

The receivers began evening practice with white-on-white violence. (It appears that the running backs were in this group, too, but for the sake of my laziness, let’s just call them all receivers for now.)

What? I meant white jerseys. What did you think I meant?

I suspect this drill had something to do with ball security, but I don’t actually know what it was about. For all I know it could have been about instilling a deep hatred for blue objects. That would be odd, though, since Chelsea’s home jerseys are blue. Is self-loathing a valid football strategy?

Actually, now that I look at the photos again, those shields are closer to Adrian’s blue than they are to Chelsea’s. Thanks to its unrelenting Adrian-ness, Adrian-loathing is fine by me.

Of course, since they’re (mostly) receivers, they also had to do a little bit of receiving. But since they didn’t benefit from Coach Moundros’ “Smile for the camera!” lesson, they had the audacity to keep their eyes on the ball while I was taking pictures.

Speaking of Coach Moundros: have you seen his website, happybald.com? If you haven’t, you should — especially if you’re proudly bald or reluctantly balding.

Okay, back to the catchy action.

Despite his intent concentration, this receiver took a moment to show me the size of the fish he caught just the other day.

Not to be outdone, the next receiver bragged about his more impressive fishing triumph.

Finally, one receiver demonstrated his superb levitation skills.

Is levitation against the rules of high school football? If not, there are going to be some shocked and awed defensive backs this year.

Meanwhile, the offensive linemen were making sure he didn’t levitate the turf along with the ball.

They were also taking out some anger on the poor defenseless blue shields.

If you gave that blue shield a university diploma and called it a therapist, I bet it could charge an absurd hourly rate and still be inundated with patients. “Tell me about your childhood.” THUMP. “And how does that make you feel?” THUMP. “Have you ever told your dad how you feel?” THUMP. “I feel we made real progress today. See you next week!” THUMP. (That last one was the door closing.)

Elsewhere, Jarred was explaining how many touchdowns he’d like to score against Novi in week 1.

That might be four, or it might be four and a half. Since three points is half of six, maybe he wants to score four touchdowns and kick a field goal.

Do you think you’re in pain? Oh, you don’t know pain until Tom…

…gives you a skeptical look and tells you a hangnail isn’t that big a deal, Low-Pain-Tolerance Lucy. (For the record, I don’t know what the player was actually telling Tom. I’m not accusing him of being a Wimpy Wanda. Or a Fearful Felicity. Or a Mousy Melinda. Or even a Cowering Clarissa.)

Dom was staring at the ball…

…but now he’s staring into your soul.

Does that make you uncomfortable? Well, that’s what you get for leaving your soul unlocked. You should be more cautious next time, Careless Carol.

Eventually the coaches began the board drill. No, a board drill isn’t a power drill designed to put holes in lumber. Okay, I guess it could be that. But in football, a board drill is when you line up two players across from each other and have them try to push and shove each other out of the county. (That may or may not be an exaggeration.) This is what it looks like:

The yellow pad underneath the players is the board. The whistle blows when one of the players pushes the other off the board. It might look like violent chaos — and, like the game of football, I suppose it is — but it’s a useful drill for the coaches.

Take a look at how intently Coach Bush is watching this battle.

Oh, but Coach Bush doesn’t have a monopoly on being intent. Look at Coach Lindauer!

The rest of the team gets into the drill, too. It’s set up as a battle between the offense (white jerseys) and the defense (Cerulean-American jerseys), and the players get vocal about it.