“Every Day is a Holiday….Every Night is a Saturday and Every Meal is a Banquet!”
This became a Training Camp saying over the years in Detroit. My good friend and coaching partner Bert Hill called me a few nights ago and asked me if I had
brought out this old saying for the Moravian training camp.
I am sure that it is not “my saying,” but for the life of me I can’t remember where I saw it.
Any training camp is long – but NFL training camp…..a whole different animal. Really, prior to the last collective bargaining agreement it was even longer and harder. When you spin thru the tedium of camp you are often looking for distractions or something to make you laugh.
Well when camp would cruise into the second week (of five) or so during stretch and flex I would roll out the old “Every Day is a Holiday….Every Night is a Saturday and Every Meal is a Banquet!” quote. Invariably it would invoke a few laughs. After a few days of giving this uplifting sermon to the players I would let it slip away.
But after a few more days there would come a moment during flex and stretch where someone would yell out…..”hey Clem (me) what day is it? So….on again we would go with “Every Day is a Holiday….Every Night is a Saturday and Every Meal is a Banquet!”
Most players who traveled through Detroit would remember this. In fact as players move on to other teams over the years and I would see them before games they would remember our shared laughs over “Every Day is a Holiday….Every Night is a Saturday and Every Meal is a Banquet!”
Well, maybe it isn’t that funny but it was funny at the time!
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Training camp is winding down here at Moravian for the summer of 2019. Although a short camp in terms of the number of days…they have been long in regards to the hours we spent with the players.
Basically we had nine practices and a scrimmage packed into ten days – usually starting with breakfast at around 7:00 and ending with a late dinner at 8:30 in the evening. That is a lot of intense work in a short span of time (in fact it is a “blivvy” …oh you don’t know what a “blivvy” is? One of my old Head Coach’s Bobby Ross once told me – a “blivvy” is twelve pounds of shit in a ten pound bag). But with the ever changing NCAA rules it is the only way to get properly prepared.
It was a pretty smooth camp and the players really did a nice job of staying focused-in and working hard throughout. There were very few hiccups along the way and our leadership council and upperclassmen were a big part of our successful camp.
I think as coaches we feel pretty good about the progress we have made. We certainly recognize that the pre-camp preparations in strength and conditioning allowed us to hit the ground running when we opened up. Tom Long and his assistant Laurie Seagraves did a fantastic job with the athletes who trained here on campus during the summer.
Through this fine strength and conditioning program the development of our guys was very obvious. But, again, it comes down to the “troops.” They are the ones who have to put out the effort and sacrifice to make it work.
Although we had some nicks and bruises along the way we have been pretty fortunate to have avoided the major injuries you often see in training camp. Naturally, any injury is a concern, but we were able to practice at full strength for the majority of camp.
Our scrimmage with FDU may not have bee as explosive as the fans wanted to see we got a lot of good work done. We did not game plan at all, and we wanted to see a lot of players so there could be some good tape to evaluate.
Naturally when you are “spinning” players through the scrimmage you may not have the exact combinations you want together. But our biggest goal was to give our guys a chance to perform and also to see who could react properly in the stress of a game situation.
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Well, time to shut the blog down for this week. It is a little strange still having a weekend coming up without a game to play for Moravian. But it gives us more time to coach the team and also prepare for our opener with Kings.
Plus it gives me an opportunity to go and watch my beloved Konkrete Kids of Northampton High School.
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Just heard the Boss (Wife) is back from her cruise thru the Mediterranean which included visits to Venice, Malta, Greece, Turkey, (oh yeah Dubrovnik,
Croatia -Game of Thrones) and so on and so on. But she will be jealous when she finds out I am going to Vienna, Austria on my next leg of my football (ad)ventures!