The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley Elkins High School head football coach Chad Ware, left, greets a driver making a donation during the team’s bucket drive Saturday on Randolph Avenue. Taking part were EHS coaches, from left, Tommy Lopez, Bryan Thompson and Jeff Triplett.

ELKINS — The Elkins High School football team held a bucket drive over the weekend to help raise money for new home uniforms for the upcoming 2026 football season.

Tigers head football coach Chad Ware and members of his coaching staff spent close to seven hours standing in the middle of Randolph Avenue collecting donations from vehicles Saturday.

“We spent the day raising money for the purchase of new home-game uniforms,” Ware said. “The orange uniforms that we have been using are outdated and way overdue to be replaced. We are required to have both home and away uniforms, and our home ones that we used last year are every bit of 10 or 11 years old.”

Ware was grateful for the community’s response during the drive on Saturday, saying the football program will be selling the old orange jerseys that are being replaced.

“Everything went really, really well and a couple of the guys who have done them before said it was the most they’ve ever seen made at a bucket drive,” Ware said. “The community was great, they donated money and gave us a lot of well wishes. We heard a lot of ‘good luck’ and ‘we can’t wait for the season to start’ from a lot of folks. That’s really a good feeling when you have that kind of community support.”

Ware said the success of the bucket drive would not have been possible without the support of many.

“Between the City of Elkins and the Elkins Police Department, they really helped us get things ready for the bucket drive,” Ware said. “The Elkins Police Department parked their vehicles on both ends of the drive to help slow the traffic down.

“All of our coaching staff was on hand. They are a great group of guys and a great staff and they are always willing to help out. It’s always for the kids, so whatever we can do to better their experience we are going to do.”

The Tigers will start flex football practices on May 4, and fall practice is scheduled to begin on Aug. 3.

“We get 32 days to work with them during the summer. Typically what we will do is go about three days per week, and that’s when we start installing all of our offense, defense and special teams stuff,” Ware said. “It’s a time when we get new guys acclimated to the program and we will condition a little bit, and of course the weight room is still going on as well…

“We do it through May and June and in July we give them time off to do family vacations and kind of gear down and get ready for fall practice.”

Elkins, which advanced to the Class AAA playoffs last season and finished with a 7-4 record, will open the 2026 campaign at home against Lincoln on Aug. 28.

“From what we have back from last year, we really don’t have any holes to replace defensively,” Ware said. “We return all 11 starters back on defense from our state playoff game.

“On offense, we have three holes to fill along the front and with the graduation of running back Logan Beam. But we have some capable guys who will start back there (at running back). I feel pretty confident where we are at right now.”

Ware said that information on making donations to the program can be obtained by contacting him, other members of his coaching staff, or by sending a message to the Elkins High School Football History Facebook page.

The team will host a chicken burn on June 4 for its next fundraiser. The event will be in the former IGA parking lot on Randolph Avenue.