I've always been aware of Camp T, but it's never been a summer tradition of mine. The last couple of days up there was a completely new experience for me, so @Hod Rabino asked me to put together some observations about what I saw and heard from the perspective of a novice Tontozonian.
I've always been a bit of a snob about Arizona's national forests. I'm from the border of Wyoming and Montana, and I've always thought of Payson, Prescott, Heber, Show Low and even Flagstaff as "diet" substitutes for the rocky mountain experience that I'm used to. For any of you that are from Arizona and have lived elsewhere, it's sort of like people telling you about a place where you can get a great burrito- while it might be good, you know the whole time you're eating it you'll be thinking about that place you like back home. That whole mindset may have factored in to my reluctance to ever attend the festivities at Camp T. That, and for the last few years I've been a junior high and high school teacher, so getting away in the first couple of weekends is a little tricky.
On Wednesday, the players were moved to Rumsey Park due to the lack of drainage on the field from this week's apocalyptic rain-aggedon sessions. Nobody was happy to be at Rumsey Park. Team activities were crammed into a smaller space, running behind schedule, with equipment issues and confusion aplenty early on. Todd Graham's vocal chords seemed to pay the heftiest price for the unwanted transition, as he was attempting to yell the team and camp staff back on track. Looking back on the day at Rumsey Park now that the camp is over, having the adversity early on only made ending the camp on a beautiful day at Camp T in front of 6100 fans that much more sweet for the players and coaches. Adversity builds character until the day that it simply reveals character. Issues early on instead of later are defintely the character-building kind.
One thing that jumped out at me right away on Wednesday was the size of the newcomers. I had heard Bo Wallace was currently a tad small for his eventual role at the Devilbacker position, which is why I had to double check the roster when I first laid eyes on #48. When the pads are on, Wallace looks like a grown man. His frame could certainly support more muscle, and Chris Young/Carl Bradford played effectively at 240+, but still, the kid is big. JoJo Wicker, Jay Jay Wilson, Jalen Bates and Terrell Chatman's size also took me off guard. Throw those guys in with offensive linemen like Zach Robertson and Steven Miller and you're starting to look like a Pac-12/SEC hybrid team at various positions. Bryce Perkins isn't exactly small either. On three different nights last week I was at high school scrimmages in various parts of the valley, and being around ASU's new freshmen made me feel like those scrimmages were Pop Warner all-star games.
Another thing that jumped out at me on Wednesday was Mike Bercovici's grasp of what's going on. At one point, Demario Richard busted a run that went the full length of the field for a TD, and after runing down to celebrate with Richard, Berco quickly turned his attention to Devin Lucien to quiz him about the things he did wrong on the previous couple of plays. He never told Lucien what to do, but he did push him to figure it out himself. He will yell though. I saw him scream at some players for simple mistakes, and they made the adjustments even more quickly than if a coach had given the orders. If the players have bought in to Graham, Norvell, Shipp and Slocum enough to take some of the ass-chewings they get when they make mistakes, they've bought into Berco just as much, if not more. There's an evident trust that he has your success in mind when verbally slapping you upside the head.
I stayed in the valley on Thursday, and headed back out on Friday. I managed to avoid Star Valley's speed camera-based fundraising efforts, but the car in front of me wasn't so lucky. I arrived after 9am, and had to park on the freeway- something I've done after forgetting to pay attention to the amount of fuel I had left, but never something I'd done willingly. Walking into the practice, the set-up of Camp T reminded me of all the summer camps and church retreats I'd volunteered at for summer jobs. The logistics of housing, feeding and entertaining 150 kids seemed like an easy task compared to facilitating a camp for these giant young men. I noticed they had three 25 foot long portable refrigerators parked at the entrance. For a second, I laughed at the thought of them heading into town and completely wiping out the deli and produce sections of Safeway and Basha's. That laughter quickly turned to dread when I remembered that I have three sons and a daughter on the way, and I might have to end up renting one of these giant refrigerators myself just to feed the mouths in my own house. I don't know if it was the elevation or what, but I started to feel a bit light-headed.
Back to the practice activities- I arrived during individual drills, and saw well over 500 people dressed in gold taking in the sights. One of those sights was Jackie Shipp getting in Edmond Boateng's ear about his effort during a drill. Boateng was made to do up-downs in front of the new guys. Something like that can certainly make other players realize that nobody is immune to getting coached up. Things ran much cleaner for the linemen after that. A little later, the offensive and defensive lines came together and ran through some packages against each other. GA Josh Martin, a former Tartleton State OL, has impressed me. He's an active and knowledgable guy about techniques that he almost certainly had to master as someone who looks at maximum 6-0, 250. At one point during the drills, the devilbackers came over and were practicing different techniques, when Jay Jay Wilson bull-rushed Steven Miller and put the 6-5, 310 pound lineman right on his ass. It was a spectacular show of athleticism, and something I would have tweeted about had T-Mobile not been acting like I had been dropped into the middle of North Korea. Still, coach Shipp saw something he didn't like, and pulled both Wilson and Wallace off to the side for an extended talk that both players walked away from looking encouraged and energized.
After practice I talked to Gary Chambers, Bryce Perkins and Bo Wallace. My goal was to speak with three different players at three different positions in three very different situations about similar things and see how unified they were in their responses. I asked them some questions about the structure and intended purpose of the camp. As an adult, if you were put in another room with adults in your same line of work, and somebody said "OK, now bond," and left you on your own, I'm not sure how natural a process that would be. These kids have all bought into similar goals though, and all expressed that they don't feel like getting to know each other and form closer relationships feels forced at all. It's certainly a testament to the idea that when you take away some of the things that people use to isolate themselves, intentionally or unintentionally, coming together isn't that complicated. One of the most interesting answers any player has given me to any question I've asked over the last 6 months is Bo Wallace telling me that his goal is to be like Todd Graham when I asked him what kind of man he hopes to become. Wallace has been around the program for a couple weeks, and was originally signed with Notre Dame. Given his circumstances, that came off as a profound and surprising statement.
After practice I wrote for a few hours at a restaurant called Cardo's, where the owner, Ray, talked to me about how he's had a hard time finding dependable kids willing to work hard to help him keep his establishment afloat. It didn't hit me right away, but later on, when I was channel surfing in my posh setup at the Motel 6, I realized the stark contrast of the kind of young people Ray at Cardo's had encountered, and the young men that Todd Graham seems to be convincing to attend Arizona State.
Currently putting together my thoughts on Saturday's scrimmage. To be continued...
I've always been a bit of a snob about Arizona's national forests. I'm from the border of Wyoming and Montana, and I've always thought of Payson, Prescott, Heber, Show Low and even Flagstaff as "diet" substitutes for the rocky mountain experience that I'm used to. For any of you that are from Arizona and have lived elsewhere, it's sort of like people telling you about a place where you can get a great burrito- while it might be good, you know the whole time you're eating it you'll be thinking about that place you like back home. That whole mindset may have factored in to my reluctance to ever attend the festivities at Camp T. That, and for the last few years I've been a junior high and high school teacher, so getting away in the first couple of weekends is a little tricky.
On Wednesday, the players were moved to Rumsey Park due to the lack of drainage on the field from this week's apocalyptic rain-aggedon sessions. Nobody was happy to be at Rumsey Park. Team activities were crammed into a smaller space, running behind schedule, with equipment issues and confusion aplenty early on. Todd Graham's vocal chords seemed to pay the heftiest price for the unwanted transition, as he was attempting to yell the team and camp staff back on track. Looking back on the day at Rumsey Park now that the camp is over, having the adversity early on only made ending the camp on a beautiful day at Camp T in front of 6100 fans that much more sweet for the players and coaches. Adversity builds character until the day that it simply reveals character. Issues early on instead of later are defintely the character-building kind.
One thing that jumped out at me right away on Wednesday was the size of the newcomers. I had heard Bo Wallace was currently a tad small for his eventual role at the Devilbacker position, which is why I had to double check the roster when I first laid eyes on #48. When the pads are on, Wallace looks like a grown man. His frame could certainly support more muscle, and Chris Young/Carl Bradford played effectively at 240+, but still, the kid is big. JoJo Wicker, Jay Jay Wilson, Jalen Bates and Terrell Chatman's size also took me off guard. Throw those guys in with offensive linemen like Zach Robertson and Steven Miller and you're starting to look like a Pac-12/SEC hybrid team at various positions. Bryce Perkins isn't exactly small either. On three different nights last week I was at high school scrimmages in various parts of the valley, and being around ASU's new freshmen made me feel like those scrimmages were Pop Warner all-star games.
Another thing that jumped out at me on Wednesday was Mike Bercovici's grasp of what's going on. At one point, Demario Richard busted a run that went the full length of the field for a TD, and after runing down to celebrate with Richard, Berco quickly turned his attention to Devin Lucien to quiz him about the things he did wrong on the previous couple of plays. He never told Lucien what to do, but he did push him to figure it out himself. He will yell though. I saw him scream at some players for simple mistakes, and they made the adjustments even more quickly than if a coach had given the orders. If the players have bought in to Graham, Norvell, Shipp and Slocum enough to take some of the ass-chewings they get when they make mistakes, they've bought into Berco just as much, if not more. There's an evident trust that he has your success in mind when verbally slapping you upside the head.
I stayed in the valley on Thursday, and headed back out on Friday. I managed to avoid Star Valley's speed camera-based fundraising efforts, but the car in front of me wasn't so lucky. I arrived after 9am, and had to park on the freeway- something I've done after forgetting to pay attention to the amount of fuel I had left, but never something I'd done willingly. Walking into the practice, the set-up of Camp T reminded me of all the summer camps and church retreats I'd volunteered at for summer jobs. The logistics of housing, feeding and entertaining 150 kids seemed like an easy task compared to facilitating a camp for these giant young men. I noticed they had three 25 foot long portable refrigerators parked at the entrance. For a second, I laughed at the thought of them heading into town and completely wiping out the deli and produce sections of Safeway and Basha's. That laughter quickly turned to dread when I remembered that I have three sons and a daughter on the way, and I might have to end up renting one of these giant refrigerators myself just to feed the mouths in my own house. I don't know if it was the elevation or what, but I started to feel a bit light-headed.
Back to the practice activities- I arrived during individual drills, and saw well over 500 people dressed in gold taking in the sights. One of those sights was Jackie Shipp getting in Edmond Boateng's ear about his effort during a drill. Boateng was made to do up-downs in front of the new guys. Something like that can certainly make other players realize that nobody is immune to getting coached up. Things ran much cleaner for the linemen after that. A little later, the offensive and defensive lines came together and ran through some packages against each other. GA Josh Martin, a former Tartleton State OL, has impressed me. He's an active and knowledgable guy about techniques that he almost certainly had to master as someone who looks at maximum 6-0, 250. At one point during the drills, the devilbackers came over and were practicing different techniques, when Jay Jay Wilson bull-rushed Steven Miller and put the 6-5, 310 pound lineman right on his ass. It was a spectacular show of athleticism, and something I would have tweeted about had T-Mobile not been acting like I had been dropped into the middle of North Korea. Still, coach Shipp saw something he didn't like, and pulled both Wilson and Wallace off to the side for an extended talk that both players walked away from looking encouraged and energized.
After practice I talked to Gary Chambers, Bryce Perkins and Bo Wallace. My goal was to speak with three different players at three different positions in three very different situations about similar things and see how unified they were in their responses. I asked them some questions about the structure and intended purpose of the camp. As an adult, if you were put in another room with adults in your same line of work, and somebody said "OK, now bond," and left you on your own, I'm not sure how natural a process that would be. These kids have all bought into similar goals though, and all expressed that they don't feel like getting to know each other and form closer relationships feels forced at all. It's certainly a testament to the idea that when you take away some of the things that people use to isolate themselves, intentionally or unintentionally, coming together isn't that complicated. One of the most interesting answers any player has given me to any question I've asked over the last 6 months is Bo Wallace telling me that his goal is to be like Todd Graham when I asked him what kind of man he hopes to become. Wallace has been around the program for a couple weeks, and was originally signed with Notre Dame. Given his circumstances, that came off as a profound and surprising statement.
After practice I wrote for a few hours at a restaurant called Cardo's, where the owner, Ray, talked to me about how he's had a hard time finding dependable kids willing to work hard to help him keep his establishment afloat. It didn't hit me right away, but later on, when I was channel surfing in my posh setup at the Motel 6, I realized the stark contrast of the kind of young people Ray at Cardo's had encountered, and the young men that Todd Graham seems to be convincing to attend Arizona State.
Currently putting together my thoughts on Saturday's scrimmage. To be continued...
