- July 12, 2025
Jaden Dormevil stretches before the Pirates' annual red, white and blue workout. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Matanzas football players do a Hero Workout of the Day for their annual red, white and blue workout. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Jack Ferguson does a set up hex bar upright rows during the Pirates' red, white and blue workout. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Matanzas coach Matt Forrest plays the air fiddle to John Denver's "Thank God I'm a County Boy" during the Pirates' annual red, white and blue workout. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Aiden Hoeni does a set of man makers with a pair of dumbbells. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Aiden Hoeni gets ready to do man makers with a pair of dumbbells. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Jordan Schendorf does a set of hex bar upright rows. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Jaden Dormevil leaps during a 400-meter run during the Pirates red, white and blue workout. Photo by Brent Woronoff
A group of Matanzas football players run around the track during the Pirates' annual red, white and blue workout. Photo by Brent Woronoff
James Peterson gets ready to do a set of man makers. Photo by Brent Woronoff
As Matanzas High School football players began the team's fifth annual red, white and blue workout with the first of eight 400-meter runs around the track, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” filled the air.
As the first group got to the barbell exercise area, the morning's soundtrack proceeded with Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),” followed by “Only in America,” by Brooks & Dunn and “Proud to Be an American,” by Lee Greenwood.
The red, white and blue workout, which was held on Thursday, June 26, is always scheduled near the end of the week leading up to the Fourth of July, marking the end of the Pirates’ first phase of summer conditioning before a break. Many of the players wore red, white and blue shorts, T-shirts or bandanas for the occasion. After the workout, the team had a picnic.
The workout is chosen from the CrossFit catalog of Hero WODs (Workout of the Day), which honor fallen servicemen who died while serving honorably in the line of duty.
This year, the team completed the workout honoring U.S. Petty Officer First Class Michael J. Strange, a Navy cryptologist technician collection expeditionary warfare specialist. Strange, 25, died on Aug. 6, 2011, after his unit’s helicopter crashed in Wardak Province, Afghanistan.
The workout, which the Pirates adapted, consisted of eight rounds of a 400-meter run, 11 man-maker exercises with dumbbells, 11 hex-bar upright rows and 11 hex-bar squat jumps — that's about two miles of running and 264 of reps of CrossFit weight exercises.
As Matanzas head football coach Matt Forrest announced the workout, he explained to the players that they have the freedom to live the lives they want to lead because members of the military put their lives on the line with some, like First Petty Officer Michael Strange, paying the ultimate sacrifice.
