Post by TheShadow on Jul 26, 2009 4:52:16 GMT -5
www.insidebayarea.com
By Gary Peterson
Contra Costa Times columnist
"(Training camp) starts a month from today, and I'm dreading it. I don't want to work that hard again. I don't want to take all that punishment again. I really don't know why I'm going to do it."
— Jerry Kramer, writing on June 15, 1967 in "Instant Replay"
NFL TRAINING CAMPS, which open this week, have come a long way in 42 years. Well, not necessarily for the players. For them it remains a sweaty, special kind of purgatory.
That's because the basic nature of the game hasn't changed much since Kramer was the starting right guard on Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers. Football is a tough game, played by tough men, charged with winning primal physical battles against other tough men.
There's only one way to prepare for that kind of ordeal. Just ask Raiders coach Tom Cable, who plans to open camp with four consecutive days of two-a-day drills.
"We started two-a-day workouts today," Kramer wrote on July 17, 1967, "and the agony is beyond belief. You wonder why you're there, how long you're going to last."
If training camp remains essentially unchanged, the training camp experience has evolved. Of course, we wouldn't know about that around here. The Raiders, who bivouac in Napa, close their practices to the public. The 49ers, who hold camp at their Santa Clara facility, will open four practices this summer.
Most everywhere else around the NFL, training camp practices are open to fans. Many include fan-friendly activities. Autograph opportunities abound. There are kid zones, cheerleader appearances and team stores.
That's a far cry from Green Bay circa '67, when if you were lucky you might spy a small cluster of Packers risking Lombardi's considerable wrath by breaking curfew at a local pizza joint. Or even Rocklin, circa '81, when the 49ers trained in a steaming, sleepy hamlet that included little more than a veterinary hospital, a gas station and a community college.
Clearly the NFL is taking a cue from baseball, where spring training has become a cash cow. Fans flock to Arizona and Florida, "snowbirds" whose migration touches off civic wars. Earlier this month, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies announced plans to move their spring training base from Tucson to the Scottsdale area, where the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community is offering to build a complex big enough for two teams. Tucson officials are threatening legal action should the teams leave before their leases are up.
That's serious business — emphasis on "business."
No wonder, then, that the NFL wants to get in on the fun. But while it has made inroads, it's difficult to imagine training camp ever rivaling spring training as a tourist destination. One reason: the time of the season.
Spring training has the advantage, opening as it does just before the first blush of, well, spring. Fans are ready for baseball, a respite from winter's icy embrace. Would-be poet laureates line up to portray spring training as a metaphor for rebirth, a cosmic reawakening. To the extent that one can over-romanticize baseball, they do.
Whereas football training camp opens during the most oppressively intemperate month of the summer. Back to our friend Kramer, writing on July 19, 1967:
"It was hot, miserably hot, above 90. Until now, we've had a little cloud, a little haze, a little cool breeze, but today the heat just descended upon us and made everything even more unbearable than usual."
There is nothing romantic about football in July. Instead of baseball players easing back into familiar routines, you have big, sweaty men pounding against blocking sleds, doubled over at the waist, sweat dripping from their chin.
Spring baseball, languid and slow-paced, looks like fun. Summer football, not so much. It's best enjoyed against a backdrop of multi-hued leaves. Or better yet, a curtain of snowflakes.
In the meantime, could someone please reawaken the air conditioner?
By Gary Peterson
Contra Costa Times columnist
"(Training camp) starts a month from today, and I'm dreading it. I don't want to work that hard again. I don't want to take all that punishment again. I really don't know why I'm going to do it."
— Jerry Kramer, writing on June 15, 1967 in "Instant Replay"
NFL TRAINING CAMPS, which open this week, have come a long way in 42 years. Well, not necessarily for the players. For them it remains a sweaty, special kind of purgatory.
That's because the basic nature of the game hasn't changed much since Kramer was the starting right guard on Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers. Football is a tough game, played by tough men, charged with winning primal physical battles against other tough men.
There's only one way to prepare for that kind of ordeal. Just ask Raiders coach Tom Cable, who plans to open camp with four consecutive days of two-a-day drills.
"We started two-a-day workouts today," Kramer wrote on July 17, 1967, "and the agony is beyond belief. You wonder why you're there, how long you're going to last."
If training camp remains essentially unchanged, the training camp experience has evolved. Of course, we wouldn't know about that around here. The Raiders, who bivouac in Napa, close their practices to the public. The 49ers, who hold camp at their Santa Clara facility, will open four practices this summer.
Most everywhere else around the NFL, training camp practices are open to fans. Many include fan-friendly activities. Autograph opportunities abound. There are kid zones, cheerleader appearances and team stores.
That's a far cry from Green Bay circa '67, when if you were lucky you might spy a small cluster of Packers risking Lombardi's considerable wrath by breaking curfew at a local pizza joint. Or even Rocklin, circa '81, when the 49ers trained in a steaming, sleepy hamlet that included little more than a veterinary hospital, a gas station and a community college.
Clearly the NFL is taking a cue from baseball, where spring training has become a cash cow. Fans flock to Arizona and Florida, "snowbirds" whose migration touches off civic wars. Earlier this month, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies announced plans to move their spring training base from Tucson to the Scottsdale area, where the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community is offering to build a complex big enough for two teams. Tucson officials are threatening legal action should the teams leave before their leases are up.
That's serious business — emphasis on "business."
No wonder, then, that the NFL wants to get in on the fun. But while it has made inroads, it's difficult to imagine training camp ever rivaling spring training as a tourist destination. One reason: the time of the season.
Spring training has the advantage, opening as it does just before the first blush of, well, spring. Fans are ready for baseball, a respite from winter's icy embrace. Would-be poet laureates line up to portray spring training as a metaphor for rebirth, a cosmic reawakening. To the extent that one can over-romanticize baseball, they do.
Whereas football training camp opens during the most oppressively intemperate month of the summer. Back to our friend Kramer, writing on July 19, 1967:
"It was hot, miserably hot, above 90. Until now, we've had a little cloud, a little haze, a little cool breeze, but today the heat just descended upon us and made everything even more unbearable than usual."
There is nothing romantic about football in July. Instead of baseball players easing back into familiar routines, you have big, sweaty men pounding against blocking sleds, doubled over at the waist, sweat dripping from their chin.
Spring baseball, languid and slow-paced, looks like fun. Summer football, not so much. It's best enjoyed against a backdrop of multi-hued leaves. Or better yet, a curtain of snowflakes.
In the meantime, could someone please reawaken the air conditioner?