Hite: 10 Worst Things About Training Camp
The calendar turns to August, which means one thing for high school football players. It's training camp. The payoff for all the hard work in August doesn't come until December or January, which makes the work in camp all that much tougher. Some guys like the month worth of camp but for others there are things that are as close too unbearable as it comes. Here are Gameday Magazine's top ten worse things about training camp:
10. Circus - And we're not talking about the one from Ringling Brothers. 10 stations, a minute and a half at each station, and they aren't position specific. Not even considering the speed of the drill, it's always fun to watch wide receiver form tackle each other and offensive linemen running passing routes. It's quick, it's fast and it's impossible to get a rhythm.
9. The New Guys - There's that kid in every high school that wants to play football his senior year. He's a great athlete, but it's his first taste of the gridiron. He doesn't know the unwritten rules and breaks them left and right, just trying to make an impression. He runs through walk-through and he hits the quarterback in 7-on-7 drills all in an effort to make an impact on the coaches. The only problem is it's dangerous.
8. Shorts and Helmets for Five Days - Getting revved for football is easy and the start of training camp puts butterflies in everyone's stomach and a tingle throughout a football player's body. But for the first week of practice, it's helmets and shorts....no contact. Waiting in anticipation to finally knock heads with that teammate lining up across from you is almost as hard as not hitting him when the ball is snapped.
7. Oklahoma for the Little Guy - Picture two guys running at each other at full speed, in an attempt to crush each other. That's Oklahoma. The linemen lock each other up and the specialists collide. The only problem is, if that 5-foot-8, 150-pound cornerback is unlucky, he winds up on the opposite side of the 6-foot-3, 230-pound linebacker. It doesn't matter how much he likes to tackle, too much of that will hurt.
6. Summer Ending Early - Nothing is worse than coming back to school and hearing all of your friends' stories about their awesome beach vacation, when all you can say is...."I've been practicing football for four weeks." While all your buddies are laying around the beach or barbequing in their back yard, you're running around an inch of grass and knocking heads with each other, or worse, healing from knocking heads with each other.
5. Conditioning - Sure. Every kid tells his coach he worked out in the summer. But most of them forget to tell the head man that it was only in the gym. That first 300-yard run or wind sprint is always the hardest. The mouth gasps for air, but the lungs are too tired to bring any oxygen in. And recovering from the runs is just as hard. When you want to just fall over there is the voice of the trainer, "Keep walking and put your hands over your head." The conditioning will come and all those runs will be easier. If they don't kill you first.
4. Two-a-Days - That first practice is hard enough. It's lunchtime and you can barely eat, let alone move. And just think. The second session is right around the corner. Two-a-days, it's the one thing all football players know the world over. But which practice is the harder one? That first one and getting loosened up, or that second one when you are too tired to be tired. The order of drills are different depending on the camp that you go to, but no matter which way you slice it, it's five hours of intensity.
3. Early Morning Wake Up - The alarm goes off and the sun is still rising. There's not time to sleep or even grab breakfast. Oh yeah, school is still a month away. It's not as bad as waking up and going to class, but it's close. You may be able to catch a nap in class, but don't even thinking about it at training camp. As a matter of fact, that may be what that gap between two-a-days is for. Or you could hang out with your friends...who are probably just waking up. But either way, wake up quickly, cause when your eyes are only half open, that blitzing linebacker across the way had a cup of coffee before practice.
2. Repetition - You'd never think that boredom would go hand-in-hand with football, but it can. Running that same exact play over and over again because the offensive lineman took a step in the wrong direction or that wide receiver missed a block on the far side of the field. Over and over and over and over...and over again. Every once in a while you'd like to ask the coach to run a halfback pass or a double reverse to go along with that isolation or dive play he loves so much. But you never would. It would probably result in another run up the middle.
1. August Heat - If all of that wasn't enough for you, try doing it in the heat of summer. Or better yet, think about where you'll be tomorrow. It's a dead heat (no pun intended) between July and August for the hottest month of the year, and with the July heat still lingering and the fall humidity growing, August can be unbearable. You won't have to hose yourself off or dump that bottle of water over your head. There's enough sweat on your brow to refill the water bottle. But look at the good side. You get an hour break around noon.
