AD Camp Day 1

We woke up at 4:45 this morning to be at the site by 5:30. We ran out of the hotel and made it to the site on time and began setting up. Just as I was setting up the sound system, a skunk ran across the field. That has nothing significant to do with anything but that was certainly a first for me. We got everything setup and everything was ready in time for camp to start.

When camp started, camp STARTED. We had a little under 500 kids come out today most of whom had parents who stuck around to flock to Adrian in hopes of a picture. Today on our operations staff we got some help from Carlee and Brenda Roethlisberger. Carlee plays basketball at OU and Brenda came down after Coach Tomlin's camp in Pittsburgh a few days ago to help us out/visit her daughter in Norman.

I don't claim to be a big person by any means, in fact, I'm rather small. But i will say that I take pride in having a firm handshake and knowing how to look someone in the face when i meet them. My grip has stood the test of the likes of Anthony Munoz, Barack Obama, Justin Tuck and Chris Speilman among others, Adrian Peterson has the fiercest grip of any person who's ever shaken my hand. He nearly crushed my hand in his and that isn't easy to do.

One thing that struck me today when watching Adrian was at the coaches luncheon. He sat at the head table of course and he sat with the Hatton Wish Kid. I forget his name but his brother's name was Conner. Gregg introduced him and told about how he had overcome adversity. I heard his father talking to Adrian earlier about how he had just ended radiation treatment two week ago. When Gregg was talking about the kid, Adrian leaned over and started singing in the kids' ear as he was signing an authentic NFL jersey for him. It wasn't easy to do, but i read his lips and he was singing, "Time, is on my side, yes it is." He sang that two or three times and then I saw him say, "Hang in there buddy, you're gonna make it."

It's interactions like these, completely unrelated to me that make this whole camp thing worth it. Between the athletes meeting with the Hatton Wish Kids and the campers just lighting up at a chance to meet, talk to, take a picture with Adrian makes everything worth it for me.

After camp we went to campus corner on the OU campus where we ate at Louie's. It was a nic American style restaurant. We all got one round of beers on the happy hour special and ordered burgers. The Drake relays were on the TV as was the college world series, UCLA and TCU were in the 3rd inning when we got there.

When we got back to the hotel Mike and I stuffed the 500+ photo frames that we had and passed out a little after midnight.

We woke up the next morning at 4:45 and I snoozed until about 5. We gathered up the picture frames into boxes and headed downstairs so Tim couldn't make any comments about us being late like he did the day before. Tim wasn't in the lobby. So we figured we'd wait for him to come down. About 40 minutes later he woke us up on the lobby couches and told us to haul out some of the boxes to the van. We stopped by Mickey D's for breakfast and were at the field by 6:30.

Everything at camp ran smoothly. Tim's old timer ways kinda kicked in as he continued to impress upon me that his way was the only way that worked in anything. I swear if I hear "well this is how we did it in Charlotte", "In Charlotte this worked best". I'm so damn tired of hearing about Charlotte. It got to the point that when he started to bitch about things, I just told him, "It'll get done Tim, it's not my first time doing this", "I promise you'll have your Campers of the day, Tim". At one point I was walking out of the trailer from getting some post-its and i paused for a second to listen to Frank Murphy as he instructed the kids at the Army Strong Challenge on Field 4. He came around the corner right then and said, "Quit standing around, go do something." I was close to jabbing the shit out of him but instead i balled my hands up into my pockets and just walked away. From that point on, whenever I was in his vicinity I'd just walk away because I could tell he was warming up to say some bullshit comment to me and I couldn't guarantee I'd bite my tongue.

After camp, Adrian stayed in the trailer and talked to Gregg until Gregg had to run to catch his 3:00 p.m. flight. I was in charge of making sure he wasn't bum rushed by fans seeking pictures and autographs. I stopped so many people from getting to him. And yet, so many people got to him. He was there about a half hour after camp ended signing people's autographs who snuck through the cracks of our security. He didn't seem to mind too much. To be honest, he seems to really enjoy being in the spotlight. He eventually left and then we were stuck to close down the camp in the 96 degree weather. Tim decided that it'd be best if we just broke everything down and put it away today and came back tomorrow to pack up the van and move everything up to Oklahoma City for Kevin Durant's camp.

So here I am, fresh out of the shower after AD's camp. Waiting on us to leave to go to Charleston's, our lunch sponsor, for dinner and drinks. Gregg has some god awful number of gift cards to some restaurant group here in Oklahoma and so we're only eating at those places, Louie's was one of them. And tonight, since camp is over, we're probably gonna run up the bar tab a little bit.

I've been averaging a little over 4 hours of sleep a night since last Tuesday when I was up all night before I drove down here. I'm not sure if I want my body to adjust to that or not. I don't think I do, it's just not healthy in so many ways. With that in mind, I'm going to be sleeping quite a while tonight and tomorrow before we head back over to OU. I'm excited to go to sleep when i want to, not when all the work is done. I'm looking forward to waking up to the sunlight sifting through the shades instead of waking up to an alarm and headstarting the sun.

With that, I'm going to Charleston's with Tim, Mike and Tom and I probably won't be posting anything else tonight. For that matter, not until we get up to OKC and start with Kevin Durant's camp.

Later y'all.

Oklahoma

So now I'm in Oklahoma. I can't even pretend to want to write right now, I'm exhausted. I will take some time to spill out what's happened to me the last couple of days.

We left Cincinnati around 5p EST on Tuesday. I didn't even know we were leaving on Tuesday until I got to work on Monday. Knowing that, I'm really glad I didn't go to Atlanta with Tom - he had asked me last minute to go with him last Thursday - Saturday to Atlanta for Matt Ryan's, quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, camp. Like a dumbass, I was awake until about 6:30 a.m. Monday night. I woke up at 10:30. I got to the office around noon thinking we'd leave around 2:00 p.m. We didn't leave until about 3:30 and then for some reason we sat down and ate at Frisch's in Harrison and didn't really leave the Cincinnati area until about 5. I took a five hour energy drink and when i was awakened by the sound of the van tires speeding over the bumpy notches along the median, I figured it was time for Tim to drive and me to get some rest.

Tim only drove for about 90 minutes before we woke me up and told me to drive again. I bought a Monster and had no problems driving the other 6 hours into Springfield, MO. The next morning I drove the remaining four hours from Springfield, MO to Norman, Oklahoma. Tim and I checked in the hotel, went to a nearby hotel to pick up the footballs Nike shipped for the camp, went to the OU Intramural fields where the camp would be held and eventually came back to our hotel to do work, drink some beers and eat pizza.

This morning i woke up at 6:30 CST and left the hotel by 7:30. Tim and I headed over to the OU fields. Tom, Mike and Rod didn't get to the hotel until 3:45 a.m. this morning so they slept in a little and met us at the fields a little later. We were there setting up until about 5:00 p.m. Gregg didn't land in OKC until 3 so he couldn't come and approve everything until after then. Once we got back to the hotel, Tom, Mike and I went out to pick up some last minute things and stop by Taco Bueno, a fast food taco joint. Tim called an Ops meeting at around 11:00 p.m. that was the most meaningless meeting of my life. If one could ever be redundant and painfully obvious Tim is that person and he was in full force at our meeting tonight. Tom fell asleep during the meeting and after he finagled with something onhis computer for about a half hour without saying anything to any of us he said, "Well I guess we're done here." and Mike and I came back to our room and passed out.

Marvin Lewis Camp Day 1

Yesterday we had our first day of Marvin Lewis football camp. I've been pretty busy lately with ProCamps. Monday night I came back into the office at 7 after spending 4 hours there earlier in the day and was here until 11:30. The next day i was back here around 9 to head down to Paul Brown Stadium to start setting up for Marvin's camp.

The Bengals had OTAs so all we could do was drop off the supplies which were in a trailer on the back of Tim's truck and do a very breif walk through. After dropping off the supplies I drove back uptown, stopped by Bridal and Formal and took a half hour nap at the house before returning to the office to head back down to PBS for camp.

Marvin Lewis Camp is Adam's and he was pretty anxious yesterday and for very good reason. Bridgestone has a blowup that they had for their area which was being inflated by a an air compressor. Sometime around 3 o'clock the only power source, a 20 amp circuit, blew from the air compressor which meant that neither ProCamps, Bridgestone tires or WIZF 101.1 FM had power. Adam was upset to the point where he didn't even care about it anymore. Andy and I were running around trying to find alternatives, and some guy from Prestige Audio Systems was troubleshooting with us as well.

It wasn't until about 4:45-5:00 p.m. that the power finally got figured out and came back on. We banned Bridgestone from using their compressor unless they got a generator to power it because they had blown the circuit twice which is what caused so many problems.

Once that was figured out everything was all systems go for the most part. We were short six or seven coaches which is never a good thing for me. Since I am an athlete who has played both basketball and football, at naerly any of our camps, I can be summoned to coach for the coaches that don't show up. Well Jim told me I had to coach a team in the 3rd and 4th grade division. I pled that I was needed on Ops staff but he didn't care and signed me up to replace Coach Jenkins with group 8. I was NOT pleased at all.

Don't get me wrong, I love the kids and working with the kids is always fun, but I like to monitor how much interaction I have with kids during camps. As an Ops person, I monitor all of the stations and all of the groups on the field. Usually when i feel that the camp is running smoothly and I can just sit back for a while, I usually join a group encourage the kids, talk smack to them, something to bring a little energy and emotion to camp. As a coach, I have to do that full time which I can do, but I' m here at ProCamps because I know how to organize and make things happen. I can't really do that from a coaching position.

Luckily, not many kids showed up for that age group so they cut two groups, and I was able to get out of there. Camp from that point on ran smoothly. Jim messed up the rotation on one field and made me assist him in doing so, when we realized our error, I made sure that he knew it was all his fault. We figured it out though.

Marvin Lewis is an intense man. I've met him before but never realized just how intense of a guy he is. I don't know why that surprised me because he's an NFL football coach, any football coach, but he was pretty intense but in a somewhat reserved way. It was weird. Six or seven of his assistant coaches were there and two of them stayed for the duration. Also, two of his players came by. I was at the registration table when the first guy came by and we gave him a wristband as if he were the parent to a camper. We asked him a question and he just looked at us blankly and said, "I'm a player." We were embarrassed and I think he was too.

The second player that came was Dhani Jones. Adam asked him if he wanted to address the camp and he said he didn't want to but rather just observe. About five minutes later Jim was on the mic and he was introducing Dhani to all the kids. Although he wasn't prepared to speak, he gave a great talk to the kids about the importance of education and the importance of addressing his alma mater as the University of Michigan as opposed to Michigan, Michigan Wolverines or any other name that the kids came up with to address it. The first kid to answer said "Ohio State". Jokingly, Dhani then asked the kids parents to remove him from camp for making such a blashpemous mistake.

Camp ended well. Two of the three participants won the Bridgestone Go-For-It challenge winning a deck of football cards, Reebok wristbands and Chad Ochocinco receiver gloves. Famous Dave's provided the food for the camp in the form of a pulled pork sandwich with cole slaw, chips and a Rice Krispie's Treat. It was DELICIOUS!

I stuck around to help Adam clean up camp; because I don't mind helping out and because he was my ride home. I got home at 11:30 and just missed the news broadcast. I wanted to see which stations covered the camp. I know Channel 12 went live from camp at 6:00 because my friend who is interning there was at camp with Brad Johannsen.

I was supposed to meet up with some people after camp not realizing how long I would be there. One of them ditched me and the other didn't respond to my text. I wasn't too upset because I was exhausted but I'll certainly call her out on that when necessary.

I got a little less than 7 hours of sleep and woke up feeling pretty good. I came into the office a little before 10:30 and now, a little after 1:00 p.m. I am charging up the two-way radios and waiting to head back down to PBS.

This week is stupid long for me. I was at the office until 11:30 on Monday night, at PBS until about 11:00 last night and tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. Mike Grass and I are driving to New York for two camps up there. I've already informed Adam that I won't be staying that late after camp today because I want to rest before driving 12 hours to New Jersey.

With that, I'm off to Day 2 of Marvin Lewis' camp, I wonder which players he'll bring today. We shall find out shortly.

Deuces

Wes Welker Camp

First I'd like to apologize for the delay of this post. I'm going to blame my tardiness on the fact that I'm a full time student and other responsibilities have nto allowed me to write this post yet.

Welker's camp ended up going really well. It's officially the first camp of the camp season so there were almost certainly going to be some things that we came across that weren't perfect. Having said that, there weren't many problems at all. The only issue we consistently ran into was ice. The camp was held at Thayer Academy South Athletic Fields which is actually about a mile and a half from the school's campus. It's an absolutely amazing facility that has four full length football/soccer fields all covered with field turf.

The first day there was a ProWorkout led by D1, one of our partners, and Frank Murphy. We had 85 kids show up for that workout and they really were getting after it. That portion was a free workout for people ages 17-23 and they worked out and tested their skills very similarly to how they do in the NFL combine. Coach Murphy had those guys all hyped up. They were making noise all day over there and had a breakdown that was nothing short of enthusiastic.

Throughout the day Wes had some of his teammates stop by the camp. Julian Edelman , Steve Gostkowski and Tully Banta-Cain all came out. They all jumped into games with the kids and played quarterback. There was one point where Wes was playing quarterback and Gostkowski was playing safety for the opposing team. It was funny because Wes threw it to what he thought was an open receiver and out of nowhere Gostkowski broke the play up almost causing an interception on the sideline.

The second day was great as well. The kids came in with a lot of excitement and were ready to work. We did our best to solve the ice situation for day 2 because the temperatures were in the mid to upper 80s. Day 2 ran smoothly. Sammy Morris, Patriots RB, came out for Day 2 and spent a lot of the time throwing the pigskin to his kid. Wes was also visited by Josh, one of his biggest fans a kid with some sort of disability and was on an oxygen machine.

The camp ended at 4:30 and by 6:00 I had eaten at the Chipotle at the South Shore Plaza and was ready to head back north. I drove for about 30 minutes, got outside the city of Boston, and decided, once I realized that my blinks came with dreams and hallucinations, that I should stop to take a nap before continuing. I slept for 45 minutes in a church parking lot and made it back to campus by 9:30.

Since then I've been trying to wrap up junior year. I've got to apply for my senior seminar in creative writing, finish term reviews for my organizations, catch up on reading from throughout the term, outline my final projects and papers, etc. I'll be back at home a week from today on June 2 and in the ProCamps office at 9:00 a.m. June 3rd. That week I'm either working Dwight Freeney's camp in Indianapolis or Marvin Lewis' Camp at Paul Brown Stadium, I'm not sure yet. Either way, there will be installments of the camp in the near future.

Day 1: Boston

Today begins the first day of my blog this summer. I write this from the Hampton Inn in Braintree, Massachusetts. I drove down here yesterday from campus to help set up and work the Wes Welker Football camp. I got to the site yesterday around 3. We left there around 7:15 or so and headed to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. I had trouble enjoying my dinner however, because I knew that the 1500 word essay that was due last night at midnight was only about half done.

When we got back to the hotel, everyone except Leslie W., Wes's sister-and-law, had their laptops out. I quickly finished my essay. It was a critique of Ableton Live music software for my Old and New Media class. After drafting up script for Alpha Phi for today's flag football tournament, I came upstairs to fall asleep calling an end to a very long day.

I'm excited to get back into camp season. It's been 8 or so months since I've done one. The last one i did was Dwight Howard in Orlando, FL at the beginning of August. The energy level is high and there's certainly a buzz. I mean, it's Boston, there's always a buzz about sports up here. The Red Sox aren't doing too well right now but Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals is tonight and it's here so the Celtics fans are in full force. For now, I'm off to breakfast and I'll check in with you guys later.