NFL camp has little spring in its training
By Chris Tomasson 
| July 31, 2009 | 2:47 PM
Ah, NFL training camps have begun. The smell of liniment is in the air.
There’s nothing like training camp getting under way. The first broken nose. The first pulled hamstring. The first player to see his name on the waiver wire.
And, oh, the sounds of camp. The blocking sleds. The cries of agony. Dehydrated 300-pound men slurping water.
Every year, fans fawn over baseball spring training as if it were the most romantic event since King Arthur rounded up his knights. It’s the start of spring, and there’s innocence in the air.
While a romance novelist would be right at home during spring training, somebody much different would be the best choice to chronicle an NFL training camp. Try Stephen King, as in Misery.
“I tell my friends that whoever invented training camp was never a football person. That’s just the way it is,” said Broncos center Casey Wiegmann, a 14-year veteran.
Broncos players might not have been enthralled Friday morning at the start of two-a-day workouts, but the fans sure were enjoying it. Broncos officials announced a crowd of 1,657 at Dove Valley.
While team officials said the record attendance for a camp is about 2,000, Kara Christian, known as the “Bronco Lady” and who showed up wearing her traditional orange wig, called it one of the biggest crowds she’s ever seen at Broncos camp. Give or take a few years when she didn’t live in Denver, she said she’s been coming regularly to Broncos camps since the team’s first season in 1960.
The strong turnout had something to do with there being a new coach (Josh McDaniels) and a new quarterback (Kyle Orton) in town. It probably also had something to do with the unemployment rate, with more people intrigued by having something to do for free on a weekday morning.
There’s no doubt Broncos fans love their football. And what do many like the most about training camp?
“I like the hitting,” said Rick Chavez, 38, of Denver. “The best one was when Brandon Marshall and Josh Barrett went at it. . . . Barrett (a safety) kind of hit Marshall (a wide receiver) first. And then Marshall put a shoulder into him and laid him out.”
Meanwhile, Wiegmann couldn’t quite understand why the fans were out in such full force.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just practice.”
It’s quite different from when fans flock to Florida or Arizona in the spring to see their favorite baseball teams get ready for the season. At least those teams play exhibition games.
“I think they joke around a lot more,” Wiegmann said of the difference between baseball players at spring training and football players at camp. “Here, it’s all business. There are 80 guys fighting for 53 spots. There’s no minor leagues. . . . You’ve got to go out and give it your all every day in practice or get left behind.”’
Wiegmann said this camp under McDaniels is more business-like than last year’s under predecessor Mike Shanahan. While veterans could stay at home last summer, every player is now housed in a hotel. Curfew is 11 p.m.
Not that anybody would want to stay out too late during training camp.
“We bring about three pairs of clothes, and we rotate that for four weeks,” tackle Tyler Polumbus, a two-year veteran from Colorado, said of camp, which concludes with the final two-a-day workout on Aug. 20. The regular season doesn’t start until Sept. 13.
When the players have down time, they’re usually resting achy bones and muscles.
“Your body gets sore and that doesn’t go away,” said Alfred Williams, a defensive lineman from Colorado who played in the NFL from 1991-99 and now is a Denver radio and television personality.
Williams could be the only NFL player to claim to have liked training camp. He talked about enjoying the camaraderie when a top-notch Broncos team got together for camp in Greeley in the late 1990s and players would drink beer and play cards and dominoes during free time.
Of course, it was easy for Williams to profess a love for training camp as he relaxed Friday morning on a bench in the shade.
Actually, with temperatures in the 70s, the weather was ideal at the team’s first workout. But highs next week are expected to approach 90 degrees.
So haul in plenty of water and sports drinks or players will be keeling over. To get an idea of what an NFL training camp is like, the Atlanta Falcons once announced that the “hot Georgia sun can produce an estimated 100 gallons of perspiration daily from the 75-80 players.”
That was put in a Falcons press release. Teams don’t mind publicizing a bit of the macabre.
“It’s a violent sport,” Polumbus said. “The fans come out to see that.”
It’s also free admission. If you want to head to baseball spring training, not only do you often have to travel far to see your hometown team, but tickets have soared to as much as $45 for a premium seat to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers in Glendale, Ariz.
It’s true baseball spring training offers that first crack of the bat. But NFL training camps can provide the first cracked rib.
bronco lady, casey wiegmann, denver broncos, dove valley, josh mcdaniels, mike shanahan, nfl, training camp
