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.
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