FOLEY, Alabama - High school sports fans in Baldwin County won’t have to wait much longer to see their favorite teams in action.

The state’s fall sports teams are allowed to begin practicing this week and next in preparation for the upcoming fall seasons in volleyball, cross country and football.

The Alabama High School Athletic Association allowed the state’s volleyball teams to hit the court for the first time on Thursday, while cross country and football teams can start practicing on Monday.

In football, the Robertsdale Golden Bears and Fairhope Pirates will both hit the field for the first time under new head coaches. At Baldwin football media day last week, Robertsdale head coach Brian Campbell said his players and coaches will get a taste of his coaching style when practice begins on Monday.

“We treat it like a class,” Campbell said. “Football is a class at Robertsdale High School. We give them tests, assignments, ‘huddle homework,’ weight training.”

Campbell is a former Daphne assistant under head coach Glenn Vickery and former coach Steve Savarese, and he said his coaching style would reflect that.

“The things that it took to win while I was there, those are the things that we are using in the Robertsdale program,” he said. “We are introducing these kids to some of the things that we did while I was in that program. That’s where we want to be, and that’s where we are striving to get to.”

In Fairhope, head coach Adam Winegarden takes the reins of the Pirate program Winegarden was 21-3 in two seasons as head coach at Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa with two playoff appearances and an unbeaten regular season in 2011.

“It is your job as the coach to put the wins and loss record aside and to provide a positive experience for the young people in the program,” Winegarden said. “If I feel like we’ve done that, then we will have been successful in our duty.”

The wins will come if he and his coaching staff teach the players to do the right things.

“Our job is to be the best that we can be,” he said. “Whatever happens after that —if we go to the playoffs or don’t go to the playoffs, go to the third or round or whatever— if we become the best team that we can be with what we’ve been given in our program, and we develop a team atmosphere and the kids have a positive experience then we’ve done our job. Typically when you do that you make the playoffs and positive things happen for your program.”