NEWPORT-At the onset of a season, most coaches hope for the best.

First-year Cocke County coach Greg Hacker was looking for the worst as his team hit the field for its first practice sessions in preparation for the 2010 season on Tuesday.

"We've set a standard for our practices," Hacker said following Tuesday afternoon's session. "I've preached to the team that today should be our worst day.

"Every day and practice that goes on, we should get better every day, so we don't take steps backwards," Hacker said.

Hacker said his team must improve daily in order to set it sights on knocking off South Greene in the season opener on August 27.

"The first game sneaks up on you pretty quickly and that's four weeks from now," Hacker said. "Out of the last four times they've played South Greene, they've only beaten them once.

"Our main goal is to win that first game and do whatever it takes to get there and reach that goal," Hacker said.

The steps to those goals and more began on Tuesday, as Hacker instituted a traditional two-a-day system for his first fall camp at Cocke County. Two sessions, at 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. will run the first three days of practice, which ends this evening.

The team will then conclude the week with an overnight weekend camp at the high school, running Friday through Sunday afternoon.

Hacker said that the impetus on crunching as much practice time into this week was to utilize their time best, before seeing practice and educational time dwindle with the start of the school year.

"These three days (of two-a-days) will go by pretty quick," Hacker said. "It will challenge them because they're not used to coming to things twice a day and not used to being out here in the heat.

"Our camp will be the tell-all scenario," Hacker said. "Kids are going to get challenged, kids are going to get frustrated and kids will be tired of being around (here).

"We'll be doing about 20 of 24 hours a day on football stuff. When we come out of camp and transition into the school day and practicing once a day, our time is really going to be limited," Hacker said. "Now we have the time and do what we need to do. We have a lot of stuff to get in and a lot of stuff we need to do."

The team is alternating offensive and defensive work in each session of the day, with offensive work coming on Tuesday morning and a defensive session on Tuesday afternoon.

"I think for the weather conditions (Tuesday) afternoon, things went pretty well and smooth and everything was really organized," Hacker said. "(Tuesday) morning went a little bit better than this afternoon, based on weather. Offensively, it always takes more mental and knowledge wise to catch on than it does defensively.

"So (Wednesday) we're going to come out and flip flop and go defense in the morning and offense in the afternoon and we'll try to get better," Hacker said.

Despite the high temperatures on Tuesday afternoon, Hacker said he thought the first day of practice for the team went well. The team spent Tuesday in shorts and helmets and will acclimate to full pads later in the week.

"I think it went pretty well, overall," Hacker said. "You have to get some type of baseline as far as what to expect with fall practice and we were trying to establish that today."

CCHS will continue with fall practices over the weekend with their camp and then transition into a one-session per day practice beginning on Monday. The team will hold three practice sessions next week, along with an intrasquad scrimmage at 9 a.m. on August 3 and its three-way scrimmage at home on August 6 with Happy Valley and Knox Carter.

Cocke County will also host Daniel Boone in a scrimmage on August 10 and participate in the annual Inter Mountain Athletic Conference jamboree on August 13 which sets the stage for the season opener.