Michigan Football: Wolverine Fantasy Camp — Part IV

Posted at 6:00am — 5/18/2008

Michigan Football: Wolverine Fantasy Camp — Part IV

The Dream That Will Never End…An experience of the football camp last year:
Day 2 starts out at 6 am. I am too excited to sleep. Life just could not be any better than this. I talked to Kim this morning and really looking forward to seeing her at the stadium this afternoon. I cannot believe today is the day to run out on the stadium field just like the real players do. There is a knock at the door at seven. Wow! Breakfast served in my room. I told you this was first class. The bus loads at eight. Have to make sure I am down there by 7:30. You know Coach Carr. You cannot be late. Employees from the hotel send us off this morning with a nice applause. I wonder if they do that for the players before a game.

As we head to the stadium, I stare out of the window wondering how it is going to feel when my name is announced and I run out on the field to take on the hated Michigan State Spartans or the Ohio State Buckeyes. I can dream can’t I? How must it feel the players to run out of the tunnel in front of 110,000 people with The Victors playing? We arrive at the stadium to change for practice and then head to Schembechler Hall again. This never gets old. In my situation you savor every second and try and make that one second last as long as possible because after today all you will have is great memories but they will be memories the will never go away.

We arrive at the full team meeting room and all the guys seem to have their own special seat now. Me? I sit in the front row, four seats in from the left side of the room. I wonder who usually sits here. As I am daydreaming, Mike Debord walks in. He is the offensive coordinator. He says he is going to add a play today. Everybody groans because it was so hard yesterday learning one play. He then adds, “You bastards bitch and moan all year because you say we only run one play and now you’re going to bitch because we add another.” That probably got the biggest laugh of the two days. I was proud of myself because I had the one play understood and memorized and now we have another one. It was simple though. Everybody seemed to pick it up quickly.

Then Ron English walks in. He is the defensive coordinator. Of course, he has to add his new play. To my surprise all this is starting to make a little sense. I am really looking forward to getting out on the practice field and executing these plays. Hoping to hear the coaches say “good job.” These defensive coaches are intense again today but it seems like they realize that they may have to take things a little more slowly so we can understand and it works. We get out on the field for the morning practice and we actually know where to stand and where our position is. Guys are starting to call out plays on defense. You hear the safety yell “6 right read” , a corner-back yells out “cloud, cloud.” What a difference from yesterday! At first, we review yesterday and then we go into a scrimmage. The competitive juices are flowing. The coaches are really getting into this as well. The coaches hate to lose even in practice. This is great. You did not get to play a lot because there were so many guys, but it’s also fun to encourage your teammates while they are playing. Are we actually displaying some teamwork? Practice ends and nobody wants it to end, this is way too much fun.

They force us on the bus kicking and screaming but we get on and head back to the locker room to get ready for lunch. We are having lunch at the Junge Champions Center. This is really a beautiful building. You walk through the front door and there is a big granite wall with a block “M” engraved with the saying “Those Who Stay Become Champions.” It used mostly for recruiting and reunions. It tough not to be impressed. They have probably a dozen televisions mounted on the wall with one huge one upfront and they have four or five different games from last year playing on them. After lunch, we had two doctors talking about Prostrate Cancer Research, which is where most of the money we had to pay is going. You could not help but dream while they were talking. What is it going to be like in a few hours in the Big House?

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Written by Morencie124

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