With the summer months literally heating up, football teams around the area are busy hitting the weight rooms.

Locally, first-year Escambia Academy Cougar head coach Hugh Fountain said things got “off to a good start” for his 2012 team.

“We got started last Monday and we off to a good start so far this summer,” Fountain said Wednesday. “The biggest problem you have here is the distance the kids have to come. Some of them live right here by the school, but not many. But it has been a good summer.”

Fountain said the Cougars are working out three days a week— on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays—with a session at 8 a.m. and a session at 6 p.m.

“We worked out yesterday and had 51 kids come to workouts,” he said. “We only have four people from the whole team that did not come to workouts yesterday. So we are off to a very good start as far as I am concerned. If you consider the number of guys we have on the team, they have done a very good job so far. I have been pleased with them and we needed this.”

Along with the workouts, Fountain said his team also participates in camps over the summer like 7-on-7 and some passing camps and others.

“We have some individual camps and some linemen camps, but predominantly, we workout on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday,” Fountain said. “Our main goal this summer going into fall is to just get stronger. We need to get better in the weight room. Then we try to get conditioned so when we get to the fall, we are physically ready to go out there. Our main goal is to just get stronger and condition.”

Fountain was hired in January and comes to EA with 24 years of head coaching experience.

Fountain comes to Escambia Academy with a career record of 159-102 with a resume that includes a 16-year stint at Charles Henderson

High School in Troy, seven seasons at W.S. Neal High School in East Brewton and one season at Evergreen High School in Evergreen. At W.S. Neal, Fountain coached the man he replaced at EA, former Cougars’ head football coach Heath Gibson.

With his resume Fountain brings years of success with strong success in turning around programs. The season before Fountain took over at Charles Henderson, the Trojans went on 0-10. In Fountain’s first season, the team went 3-7 and followed that up with a 7-3 campaign in his second season.