A crazy day in Lehigh
I thought today was going to be a breeze. Just one practice in the morning, get most of the essential stuff done, then wait for the veterans to wander in.
It started going badly early, with the jam on the Expressway. Practice itself was OK, and Faulkner actually played great, but the aftermath was a zoo, trying to get that midday update done. They also brought offensive coordinator Mary Mornhinweg to the podium for his press conference at the same time as the players were coming off the field, so we pretty much had to choose. Be there for the conference or talk to players. I left me recorder with Mornhinweg and took my notebook to the players. It worked out fine in the end.
But then Bill Walsh passed away after a long battle with leukemia, casting a pall for a while. The Eagles organization is actually a pretty thick branch of the tree that Walsh planted and nurtured with his singular genius. Andy was borderline wistful when talking about his first encounter with the man, recently finished with college football at San Francisco State. Mornhinweg was even more so, talking about Walsh and Jerry Rice's last game In San Fran as a 49er. I transcribed all of the conversation I got, and I'll post it a little later.
Meanwhile, the vets straggled in.
Brian Westbrook brought his hyperbaric chamber, which is basically this 10-foot neoprene tube with a humidifier or something that attaches to it. It's supposed to greatly aid in recovery, and it's what TO credited for his fast heal before the Super Bowl. Anyway, someone wondered aloud if Westbrook was smuggling TO into the Eagles dorms in that thing, but then we realized that he would probably be the last guy to be caught doing that. BWest doesn't need anybody siphoning his touches, and I think there are plenty of Birds fans behind him on that one.
We asked Takeo Spikes what was essential to bring to training camp and his answer was high quality toilet tissue and 300-thread-count bedsheets. Somewhere between then and the arrival of Brian Dawkins about 30 minutes later, those two distinct Spikes essentials melded into "300 rolls of toilet paper," and somebody whispered that down the lane to BDawk. His answer went something like, "Yeah, well, toilet paper is important... Wait, no way I'm talking about toilet paper." And with that, his mini-conference ended. Luckily, he'd already answered questions for a good seven minutes.
After that we all retired to the media center, where most of us bashed our heads repeatedly against the wall for three hours. The root problem was that the only thing of even remote consequence that had actually occurred all day was that Bill Walsh had died, and for that most of us were just feeding quotes to main stories done by some dude named Associated Press. Everything else was much ado about nothing. And there was a lot of it. I think it's actually easier to write about a little nothing than a lot, because then at least you know what BS you have to pump up into something it's not. With all the BS lying around Monday, it was impossible to know where to start.
But we all got through it, and looked forward to Tuesday, when we can all sleep in. It's another one-practice day, but this one's in the afternoon. Meaning we have the late crunch, but no earlhy-onset madness. Following that is the grind, beginning at 8:15 every morning. But after today, anything resembling order would be welcome.
It started going badly early, with the jam on the Expressway. Practice itself was OK, and Faulkner actually played great, but the aftermath was a zoo, trying to get that midday update done. They also brought offensive coordinator Mary Mornhinweg to the podium for his press conference at the same time as the players were coming off the field, so we pretty much had to choose. Be there for the conference or talk to players. I left me recorder with Mornhinweg and took my notebook to the players. It worked out fine in the end.
But then Bill Walsh passed away after a long battle with leukemia, casting a pall for a while. The Eagles organization is actually a pretty thick branch of the tree that Walsh planted and nurtured with his singular genius. Andy was borderline wistful when talking about his first encounter with the man, recently finished with college football at San Francisco State. Mornhinweg was even more so, talking about Walsh and Jerry Rice's last game In San Fran as a 49er. I transcribed all of the conversation I got, and I'll post it a little later.
Meanwhile, the vets straggled in.
Brian Westbrook brought his hyperbaric chamber, which is basically this 10-foot neoprene tube with a humidifier or something that attaches to it. It's supposed to greatly aid in recovery, and it's what TO credited for his fast heal before the Super Bowl. Anyway, someone wondered aloud if Westbrook was smuggling TO into the Eagles dorms in that thing, but then we realized that he would probably be the last guy to be caught doing that. BWest doesn't need anybody siphoning his touches, and I think there are plenty of Birds fans behind him on that one.
We asked Takeo Spikes what was essential to bring to training camp and his answer was high quality toilet tissue and 300-thread-count bedsheets. Somewhere between then and the arrival of Brian Dawkins about 30 minutes later, those two distinct Spikes essentials melded into "300 rolls of toilet paper," and somebody whispered that down the lane to BDawk. His answer went something like, "Yeah, well, toilet paper is important... Wait, no way I'm talking about toilet paper." And with that, his mini-conference ended. Luckily, he'd already answered questions for a good seven minutes.
After that we all retired to the media center, where most of us bashed our heads repeatedly against the wall for three hours. The root problem was that the only thing of even remote consequence that had actually occurred all day was that Bill Walsh had died, and for that most of us were just feeding quotes to main stories done by some dude named Associated Press. Everything else was much ado about nothing. And there was a lot of it. I think it's actually easier to write about a little nothing than a lot, because then at least you know what BS you have to pump up into something it's not. With all the BS lying around Monday, it was impossible to know where to start.
But we all got through it, and looked forward to Tuesday, when we can all sleep in. It's another one-practice day, but this one's in the afternoon. Meaning we have the late crunch, but no earlhy-onset madness. Following that is the grind, beginning at 8:15 every morning. But after today, anything resembling order would be welcome.
Labels: training camp
posted by SMc. at 11:03 PM
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