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