This is the most wonderful time of the year. I know it sounds corny, but it’s the truth. I even enjoyed it when it meant triple-sessions in the blistering sun during training camp while in high school and college. Back then I thought my coaches were demented demons bent upon doing us in. This was true in high school but not so much for college. We rarely got water breaks and if injured, you were promptly told to suck it up and walk it off. So that’s what we did. We never got to take a knee, sit or rest in any way, shape or form. We’d run drills for an hour and a half, run sprints for another half hour and then jog a mile in full pads all on the first day of camp. I can remember guys from the track team quitting because they couldn’t handle it. Those were the days. It was tough, beyond tough actually, but nonetheless it was fun and helped shape my character, developed a sense of discipline and increased my ability to survive under impossible conditions.
This was where I learned about biting flies. Your legs were exposed, even if you had socks on up to your knees. This is where they would attack. It felt like someone was stabbing you with a big needle or clipping you with pinking shears. These voracious pests would occasionally draw blood and even make a kicker curse into the wind. As if dealing with gut-busting practices, coaches with pit bull mentalities and being eaten alive wasn’t enough, our school was right next to an oil refinery and the fumes would bluster over the field on a regular basis. I knew it couldn’t be good for any of us, but we didn’t know any better and continued to get down in that sock and work our tails off. I often wonder how many kids from our team developed chronic health conditions as a result of being in such close proximity of an ecological hazard. One thing for sure, if you played on our team, you were tough, well-conditioned and eager for battle. The combination of our environmental conditions, the way we were coached and the players on our team,made for a motley crew, ready to raid your stadium and leave your squad a pile of broken souls.
College was another story. I fully expected camp to be even tougher—not that it wasn’t. But these coaches seemed to possess something I hadn’t experienced since grade school—compassion. Though I had the opportunity to play for a larger university, I chose to go to a small college. I did so because I knew I was there to get an education and not to play football. Football was the tender I used to pay for my matriculation and not a conduit to dreams of becoming the next Mean Joe Greene. I had many friends that had wide-eyed dreams of playing on TV at one of the nation’s football factories. Quite a few followed their quest, but once their reality set in, they found themselves in for more than they bargained for. Few were able to make it all four years and came home dejected. Some enrolled in a JC with hopes of making it back to the show, but the rest opted for the military and let their dreams of gridiron glory fade away like streaks of light at sundown. I didn’t want this for my fate. My parents gave me two choices—college or the Marines and I nearly did both. I knew I wanted to go to college and I still wanted to play football, so for me the choice was simple, go to a smaller school with outstanding academics and a football program where I could play from day one. I wouldn’t have to redshirt bulk up or toil behind a future first round draft pick. I could just play the game I loved and get my degree to boot.
On my first day of camp, I could tell the veterans from the rookies and those of us that came from urban programs from the good ol’ boys. As we approached the field, we were told to take a warm-up lap around the practice field and then take a knee until the rest of the coaches and players made it onto the field. Take a knee? Wow, this must be a trick, some sort of freshman hazing I thought, but it wasn’t, this was how things were. Now don’t get me wrong, training camp was tough, at times even worse than in high school, but we were allowed to take a breather from time to time, sip a little water and if you got hurt, the coaches sent you straight to the trainer for treatment. We even got a true break between sessions. We had a morning practice that lasted about two hours, and then we were dismissed for lunch and didn’t have to be back on the field until mid-afternoon. It was enough time to eat, study your playbook, rest and if you hustled you could even wash your gear prior to the next practice. The adjustments were difficult at first, but as time went by, we made the necessary changes and eased into life as a college student-athlete. One other major difference was if you needed time off from practice to study, all you had to do was ask. Your books came first because you were no good to the team if you were academically ineligible.
I think of these days fondly each year about this time, especially when the Bears go to camp in Bourbonnais. I feel a kinship with the Bears not only because I know what they’re going through but because the campus where the Bears hold training camp and the one they’re headquartered in during the season are special to me. Olivet Nazarene College was in our conference and I had some of my toughest games there, even got kicked out of a couple.
And Lake Forest College, also a conference team, was where I played my first college game. I was more excited on that day than I’d ever been at that point in my life until the gun when off and we started to play. We got our butts kicked that day 48 – 0, I’d never been beaten so badly in any sport, team or otherwise since I first took to the field at age eight. It was completely humiliating. What made it worse was that some of the fans helped themselves to our Gatorade. I couldn’t believe it. At the end of the game, my father came over to me to ask how I felt. I looked back at the field and the scoreboard then said, “This is not what I expected!” I asked him if it was too late to contact one of the bigger schools I turned down because I couldn’t see myself going though this every week. He said, “It’ll be ok son, remember you’re not here just to play ball. Think about the bigger picture.”
I thought about the bigger picture and the view from the field wasn’t pretty. We won only one game that season and one in each campaign thereafter, two by forfeit. I lettered three of my four years there, got recruited by a couple semi-pro teams but most importantly I graduated. Being a college football player was not at all what I expected it to be, and if I had it to do over again, I would have played for a larger program. I’m not sure where that journey would have taken me, but where I am now is not so bad and even though it hurts a little, I can take a knee whenever I need a breather.
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