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.
