My niece’s son will be a freshman in high school this September, and he’s out for the football team. He’s in the first week of his first August training camp, so naturally thoughts of my own training camp experience as an underclassman occurred to me.
- Two-a-day workouts in the wicked heat of August
- Calisthenics, wind sprints, blocking and tackling the two-man and seven-man sleds until you thought you would drop
- Coaches yelling at you, cajoling, pushing you further
- Scrimmages, gauntlet, laps
- The coaches – Padjen, Kreuter, Zataveski, and Graybill
- The upperclassmen - Tom Good, Sonny Shoff, Dave Rodman, and Bob Lehigh
- The plays - 1-31 Counter, Screen Pass Left, 22-Trap
- “That’ll Be The Day” by Buddy Holly and the Crickets playing in the locker room
- Games of “In Between” at a nickel a bet played between morning and afternoon practices
- That awful sensation of putting on pads and uniform for the afternoon practice still clammy from the morning’s practice
- Aching muscles and the “good” tired feeling at the end of the day
-Atomic Balm on the balls
- The camaraderie and the great feeling of coming together as a team
Looking back, it was a terrific experience, although there were times in the thick heat of the afternoon that not many of us thought so. Happily, the tradition goes on.
GO HAWKS!
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