Wide Right: Training Camp!
Paul Calvisi
Cardinals Reporter
Wide Right never did like summer camp. Maybe it was the Sloppy Joe’s for lunch – every day. Or the ants devouring lil’ Wide Right’s Chips Ahoy before Wide Right could. Of course, now that you mention it, the atomic wedgies didn’t make for fond memories.
But, for once, Wide Right shares something in common with actual NFL players: neither of us has ever looked forward to camp. Although, at least Wide Right has never cried.
“The only time I ever saw a player cry because he was getting hazed too much,” recalls former Cardinal and broadcast analyst Rob Moore in citing an unnamed former Cardinals rookie fullback (uh, Ron Wolfley anyone?) “I can remember Larry Centers at 3am…busting thru his door and turning on the fire extinguisher! (The rookie) didn’t know what hit him. At that moment, he went down to the coach’s office with tears in his eyes.”
But maybe it wasn’t the fire retardant after all. Perhaps the rookie had just spotted his bicycle…in a tree!
“Joe Montana was known for putting guys’ bicycles up in trees,” chuckles Cardinals Head Coach Dennis Green, a former 49ers assistant coach under Bill Walsh. “No one could ever understand how he could get it up that high. I don’t know if he was in with the video guy who would bring a forklift? But a bike would be in a tree. And you knew that Joe Montana had put it there!”
Maybe it has something to do with Hall of Famers and their singular sense of humor. Because former Cardinals coach and new broadcast analyst Hank Kuhlmann remembers Walter Payton as “quite the prankster,” especially if you were one of the coaches conducting bed check.
“You never knew what to expect,” explains Kuhlmann. “(Walter Payton) might hide behind a door and jump out and scare you. Or when he would hear the door starting to open he might greet you with a lit firecracker.”
(Wide Right Note to Self: Where is Larry Centers with the fire extinguisher when you need him?)
Wide Right has a theory: the pranks were not only more elaborate back then, but downright necessary. Heck, back when Kuhlmann took his first NFL coaching job in 1972, training camp lasted a honkin’ huge 6-8 weeks with 6 preseason games! Even worse, Kuhlmann reports that rookie coaches had to sing during a dinner, just like rookie players. No wonder Kuhlmann was in no mood for ‘high maintenance’ players back then.
“One rookie came to Packer Training Camp with his Irish Setter,” says Kuhlmann in disbelief. “My wife had to keep the dog at our house and he chewed up the ends of an antique rocker. The guy didn’t make the team.”
Speaking of coaches, the guy who has had the greatest influence on modern day training camps also happens to be in the NFL Hall of Fame. Put it this way, with camps lasting less than 3 weeks these days, the NFL Players Association needs to send a collective ‘Thank You’ card to Bill Walsh.
“It’s a lot shorter now. I think that guys don’t wear pads as much,” says Coach Green. “I think everybody has reacted more to the Bill Walsh influence. He’s got a lot of guys who worked for him around the league and a lot of camps are run very similar to the way Bill Walsh ran his camps.”
Suffice it to say that the way Bill Walsh conducted his camps ran in direct contrast to former Cardinals Head Coach Gene Stallings. Cards analyst and 4-time Pro Bowler Ron Wolfley still shakes his head as he recalls how Stallings would allocate water based on a player’s performance during practice.
“Only Gene could decide if a player was working hard enough to earn himself a drink of water,” laments Wolfley, who went on to write the following in an email to Wide Right:
“But we are a resilient species, aren't we? Players bonded together, united
in our oppression, determined to survive via the true Buddy-System. If Coach was watching, players would say, ‘Green.’ Green became the signal to sell-out, give all that you had, in a desperate attempt to sip from the sacred Cup of Gatorade. Each player would then go through the drill like his life depended on it (not far from the truth), praying Gene would see our gutsy determination and disciplined dedication to the sport we loved, hoping to hear those beautiful words escape his mouth.
‘Son,’ he would say in that West Texas drawl, ‘go getcha some water.’”
Wolfley continues: “Ironically, to this day, I still laugh, thinking of the power of our survival instinct: players were more concerned with surviving practice than they were with getting better!”
In short, maybe training camp really is good for just one thing – memories.
“I hated that train that went whistling by at 5am every morning. It shakes you awake and it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep,” grouses Rob Moore to this very day. And don’t forget those non-stop meetings, because Moore certainly hasn’t.
“How many times can you learn to run a slant route over the course of a 12 year career?” asks Moore.
Wolfley wraps up his email by answering conducting his own Wide Right Q&A:
“Best Thing About Training Camp: Fighting some rookie from the Big-Ten.
Worst Thing About Training Camp: Fighting some rookie from the Big-Ten right before conditioning.”
Wide Right says: let Cards Camp begin!
Paul Calvisi
Cardinals Reporter
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Wide Right never did like summer camp. Maybe it was the Sloppy Joe’s for lunch – every day. Or the ants devouring lil’ Wide Right’s Chips Ahoy before Wide Right could. Of course, now that you mention it, the atomic wedgies didn’t make for fond memories.
But, for once, Wide Right shares something in common with actual NFL players: neither of us has ever looked forward to camp. Although, at least Wide Right has never cried.
“The only time I ever saw a player cry because he was getting hazed too much,” recalls former Cardinal and broadcast analyst Rob Moore in citing an unnamed former Cardinals rookie fullback (uh, Ron Wolfley anyone?) “I can remember Larry Centers at 3am…busting thru his door and turning on the fire extinguisher! (The rookie) didn’t know what hit him. At that moment, he went down to the coach’s office with tears in his eyes.”
But maybe it wasn’t the fire retardant after all. Perhaps the rookie had just spotted his bicycle…in a tree!
“Joe Montana was known for putting guys’ bicycles up in trees,” chuckles Cardinals Head Coach Dennis Green, a former 49ers assistant coach under Bill Walsh. “No one could ever understand how he could get it up that high. I don’t know if he was in with the video guy who would bring a forklift? But a bike would be in a tree. And you knew that Joe Montana had put it there!”
Maybe it has something to do with Hall of Famers and their singular sense of humor. Because former Cardinals coach and new broadcast analyst Hank Kuhlmann remembers Walter Payton as “quite the prankster,” especially if you were one of the coaches conducting bed check.
“You never knew what to expect,” explains Kuhlmann. “(Walter Payton) might hide behind a door and jump out and scare you. Or when he would hear the door starting to open he might greet you with a lit firecracker.”
(Wide Right Note to Self: Where is Larry Centers with the fire extinguisher when you need him?)
Wide Right has a theory: the pranks were not only more elaborate back then, but downright necessary. Heck, back when Kuhlmann took his first NFL coaching job in 1972, training camp lasted a honkin’ huge 6-8 weeks with 6 preseason games! Even worse, Kuhlmann reports that rookie coaches had to sing during a dinner, just like rookie players. No wonder Kuhlmann was in no mood for ‘high maintenance’ players back then.
“One rookie came to Packer Training Camp with his Irish Setter,” says Kuhlmann in disbelief. “My wife had to keep the dog at our house and he chewed up the ends of an antique rocker. The guy didn’t make the team.”
Speaking of coaches, the guy who has had the greatest influence on modern day training camps also happens to be in the NFL Hall of Fame. Put it this way, with camps lasting less than 3 weeks these days, the NFL Players Association needs to send a collective ‘Thank You’ card to Bill Walsh.
“It’s a lot shorter now. I think that guys don’t wear pads as much,” says Coach Green. “I think everybody has reacted more to the Bill Walsh influence. He’s got a lot of guys who worked for him around the league and a lot of camps are run very similar to the way Bill Walsh ran his camps.”
Suffice it to say that the way Bill Walsh conducted his camps ran in direct contrast to former Cardinals Head Coach Gene Stallings. Cards analyst and 4-time Pro Bowler Ron Wolfley still shakes his head as he recalls how Stallings would allocate water based on a player’s performance during practice.
“Only Gene could decide if a player was working hard enough to earn himself a drink of water,” laments Wolfley, who went on to write the following in an email to Wide Right:
“But we are a resilient species, aren't we? Players bonded together, united
in our oppression, determined to survive via the true Buddy-System. If Coach was watching, players would say, ‘Green.’ Green became the signal to sell-out, give all that you had, in a desperate attempt to sip from the sacred Cup of Gatorade. Each player would then go through the drill like his life depended on it (not far from the truth), praying Gene would see our gutsy determination and disciplined dedication to the sport we loved, hoping to hear those beautiful words escape his mouth.
‘Son,’ he would say in that West Texas drawl, ‘go getcha some water.’”
Wolfley continues: “Ironically, to this day, I still laugh, thinking of the power of our survival instinct: players were more concerned with surviving practice than they were with getting better!”
In short, maybe training camp really is good for just one thing – memories.
“I hated that train that went whistling by at 5am every morning. It shakes you awake and it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep,” grouses Rob Moore to this very day. And don’t forget those non-stop meetings, because Moore certainly hasn’t.
“How many times can you learn to run a slant route over the course of a 12 year career?” asks Moore.
Wolfley wraps up his email by answering conducting his own Wide Right Q&A:
“Best Thing About Training Camp: Fighting some rookie from the Big-Ten.
Worst Thing About Training Camp: Fighting some rookie from the Big-Ten right before conditioning.”
Wide Right says: let Cards Camp begin!
