Friday night just like for the past six years, Rick Zitalone carried a yellow toolbox on the sidelines of the Butler High School football game.

The box is filled with hundreds of pieces to students' football uniforms that may come loose or fall off any of the 63 junior varsity or varsity players during a game — items like cleats, snap buttons and mouthguards.

As the team's equipment manager, Zitalone ensures every player on the field has the tools needed to succeed.

“There's replacement parts for everything: For the helmet, the shoulder pads,” he said.

He points to many items in his trusty toolbox.

“Things to hold on the face mask ... Sometimes the cleats come out. I replace the cleats during the game,” he said. “These are the air pumps. And before the game, you count four game balls.”

Some of the older helmets the team has have air-filled padding, which makes the air pump handy. Newer helmets have gel-filled padding.

He also has items like mouth pieces and chin straps.

Zitalone is one of many football team equipment managers who work behind the scenes to get players and the teams ready for the Friday night lights.

On Friday high school football kicked off for the 2015 season, which means football team equipment managers' work shifted into high gear until November.

Zitalone usually is not alone while at work. A student helper and a recent graduate normally are there to assist him with any mishaps that may happen and do any additional tasks that need to be done.

So while Zitalone just experienced his first among many long Friday nights this fall, his job also takes him into Saturday morning when he comes back to the school to wash all of the players' uniforms.

“We don't send our uniforms out. We wash them,” he said.

During home games, he's usually at the field house past 11 p.m., and then he's back by 6 a.m. Saturday to do the laundry. He estimates he puts about 60 hours of work each week into the job during football season, between practices, games, cleanups and maintenance.

Over the season, equipment managers keep track of articles that are no longer usable such as torn uniforms and practice pants, or girdle pads that have lost elasticity.

“We throw them out, and at the end of the year, we get a list and inventory everything. Number of sizes in practice pants, uniforms and so on,” Zitalone said. “I have a master list of everything.”

Each player has a locker with all of their items. Uniforms are hung in each locker before each game day.

Helmets and shoulder pads undergo a more stringent process each year called reconditioning to ensure each piece meets requirements of national safety standards.

All of that begins as soon as football season is over, usually in November or December.

But on the field helmets are closely monitored. Dave Vestal, head football coach at Seneca Valley High School, said a helmet coming loose or off during a game usually is problematic unless a solution is found quickly.

“You always have the situation where someone borrows the helmet,” Vestal said, who led his team for the first time Saturday in a game postponed by thunderstorms.

He previously coached at Hopewell High School, in Beaver County, and he still teaches physics there.

Coincidently, he taught his students an egg drop lesson on Friday — how to protect the egg from cracking. He saw the lesson analogous to helmet protection, saving students from concussions and other head injuries.

“I think it's really interesting how these things have changed with helmets and concussions,” Vestal said. “Everything's evolving to becoming lighter but better.”

Heather Lewis, athletic director for the Seneca Valley School District, oversees five football teams, including two middle school teams, a ninth grade team, and junior varsity and varsity teams. They send their helmets and shoulder pads to an equipment company at the end of each year to be checked.

“The football helmets are going to cost about $375 a pop. So if you're ordering 10, that's about $3,700. If you're ordering 20, you're looking at $7,400, $7,500,” she said.

“They get reconditioned every year, but we don't keep them for an extended period of time.”

Players are measured for their equipment to ensure the best fit, particularly when it comes to helmets. Like Zitalone, Lewis said other items are ordered as needed, usually as they wear out and/or more are needed.

“Tackling sleds, helmet caps. There's miscellaneous equipment that we order as needed. So that's how that goes,” she said. “We'll start the cycle all over again in November.”

Unlike Butler, Seneca Valley doesn't have an equipment manager to detail each and every piece of gear on all 80 players. Instead, there's a person who tracks inventory of gear, and there are trainers and volunteers who help out with all of the game-related issues.

Coach Vestal did have an equipment manager at Hopewell, where he coached football for 14 years.

“He did a heck of a job,” he said.

The uniforms are shipped out to wash on Saturday and are back by the following Wednesday well before the next game.