Division III Football is a unique animal in the college football world. There are no athletic scholarships and many of the colleges are expensive liberal arts schools. Every athlete plays for the enjoyment of their sport.
All of there rules are built for Division I – they don’t have the same situations we face. We have a 10 game season – they may play 13 games. They start earlier – have more money to pay for their training camp.
We have very limited resources…and I am sure most other DIII schools face similar situations.
Experiencing football at Moravian or any other small college is fantastic. But it can be an emotional rollercoaster for a freshman away from home for then first time.
This is a long drawn out camp. The NCAA rules have changed and so has the way we are allowed to practice. The camp is longer than normal because we are only allowed to practice once a day.
We are allowed the same amount of practices…but they are spread out over a longer period of time. Therefore camp is probably a whole week longer than it would normally be. This is a really long camp with little free time.
So here is where we are right now……..
As we slowly work into the sixth and seventh days of training camp you realize that the “Dog Days” have arrived. The hours slow down and seems to drag on. Times stands still…. even as the clock moves on.
The soreness in the muscles has finally gone away and now the bruises and strains begin to take over. Trying to loosen up the muscles is no longer the issue – managing the aches and pains of the constant banging takes center stage.
The seemingly endless meetings to install new offensive plays and defensive schemes not to mention the cryptic special teams designs pile up day after day. Suddenly you realize that you don’t even know what day of the week it is and wonder if the season will ever arrive.. Let alone the beginning of the mysterious first year of college..
You get tired of looking at your teammates, your roommate is a mess (or too neat for you – like that really happens.) The food in the cafeteria has started on its third cycle. Then you realize what you thought was meat loaf was really tofu with spicy pomegranate sauce. No wonder you have gas.
Obviously the coaches all hate you because the only conversation between you is at an incredibly high decibel count and includes many words you wouldn’t say in front of your parents. They pretty much make you feel like you never played a down of football in high school.
Oh yeah to add insult to injury your girlfriend back home just sent you a text telling you about how nice your (x) best friend Joe Flabeetz was. They just got back from the Dairy Queen – purely plutonic of course. My ass!
They are both still in HS and you are trapped here in this hot dorm room with a bunch of overheated and oversexed sweaty guys. What a great life you have. You thought this was going to be a breeze. Not so fast.
That evening lying in bed listening to your fat roommate snore and belch you take stock of your sorry life. Here you are sweating your ass off because there is no air conditioning in the dorm. Your stomach hurts – probably from that patty you thought just might be a turkey burger – well maybe it was something else.
Your probably (x) girlfriend is running around with your probably (x) best friend Joe Flabeetz. Plus you think the coaches believe you are the worst football player in the history of the world. Maybe you should just give it up and go home.
Then, you wake up and the grinder starts up again. You hear that one of the other players at your position got homesick (and he lived 15 minutes away) and hit the road last night without telling anyone. (Or maybe his girlfriend was also spending time at the local Dairy Queen).
You head to the morning meeting after eating some kind of omelet (maybe) that contained sausage (you hope)! Your position coach intercepts you on the walk and tells you that he was really impressed at the progress you were making. (Huh? What? Me…. he just called me a dumb shit last nite). You walk into the meeting room and wonder what the hell is going on around here.
You actually start to understand what the coach is talking about in the meeting that morning. Then he asks you to stay behind after the meeting ends. The coach asks you if everything is OK and that he needs you to move up on the depth chart. It’s going to be hard he tells you – but he is confident in what he is seeing.
What the hell is happening!?
You are feeling a little weird as you walk to the dorms before practice. You note a few young women walking around the campus, actually – quite a few young women. There weren’t any here yesterday….what the hell?
The best player on the team is in stride with you and he laughs and tell you that the new people on campus are all RA’s and a group of freshman girls who are is some special study group. He tells you that more and more students should be arriving anytime now as the school year rapidly approaches.
With the scrimmage coming up in a couple of days and campus starting to pick up he informs you that the worse is really over with. He tells you that his first training camp sucked and that he seriously thought about quitting and that it was amazing how things changed when the school year started.
Really….really? Then a text comes in – girlfriend? (x) girlfriend?
Didn’t that girl over there just smile at you? Maybe….but practice is on the near horizon….so get your ass in gear.
Maybe you should just hang around a little longer – there are Dairy Queen’s everywhere you realize.
Once again the world was spinning in greased grooves.