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Friday night lights are right around the corner, but the dog days of training camp are still biting for about a week or two.
High school players around New England officially kick off the regular season next weekend, but hot, grind-it-out practices and a few scrimmages are still the focus as teams forge their identities. These two weeks each summer are also a time where young athletes grow up both on and off the field. In many ways, high school football helps shape who you are 30 years down the road.
The Patriots just finished up their own tough camp and will have the weekend off before locking in for Cincinnati next week. The Pats practiced on Wednesday and are again on Thursday. For the majority of the locker room, high school football played a part in creating the men and players they are today. They all had to deal with those brutal camp days as youngsters and then again in college before deciding to actually go through it routinely for a living.
In honor of camp winding down for the programs around here, on Wednesday I asked 10 players for their best or worst high school camp memories before they headed out to the practice field.
Some of the answers were…interesting, to say the least. Enjoy…
Drake Maye
Myers Park HS (Charlotte, NC)
“My favorite is probably just staying in the dorms at fall camp with the guys, playing video games. I still talk to all of those guys…you always remember all of those Friday nights too.”
Joe Milton
Olympia HS (Orlando, FL)
“My worst one is probably when…it was summer workouts and like, everybody was there, but nothing really started until like two hours later or whatever, so everybody got there a little bit early. We were playing around in the locker room…one of the kids was in an (ice) bucket, he was frozen in a bucket…someone accidentally pushed the bucket and he slipped and fell and chipped his tooth. That was the sad part, but, our high school coach made us run and bear crawl the whole day while college scouts were there watching. It was crazy. I still talk to some of them. Some of them took another route, but some of them, if they text me or hit me up on social media I’ll hit ’em back, for sure.”
Christian Gonzalez
The Colony HS (The Colony, TX)
“My worst – probably just because it’s Texas – so it’s about 105 degrees everyday. We would practice at 3:00 and we would have to go on the grass fields. My school had a stadium that we played on, but we couldn’t practice on the turf because it would melt your cleats. But, oh yeah, for sure, high school was the best. Any time I’m back in the city and I go visit I always tell them, ‘enjoy high school because that’s the most fun you’ll have playing football.’ You grow up with all your homeboys and you go out there and just go play. It’s a lot of fun. A lot of us still text. I was texting one of my old teammates about two days ago. We’re all still real tight.”
David Andrews
Wesleyan School (Peachtree Groves, GA)
“We would go away to a camp for three days, Camp Simpsonwood (Simpsonwood Park). We called it Camp Simpsonwood. It was a grind. We practiced two-a-days on Friday, three-a-day on Saturday. So, in the morning it would be a defensive day, we’d start at like 7:00 in the morning. Then, we’d have a special teams practice and then an offensive practice that night. But, we were all together in rooms at this like, retreat. Then, on Saturday night, our parents would throw us an ice cream party, which was always fun. Sunday we’d wake up and we would either have a two-a-day or one practice on Sunday in the morning and then a cookout at the stadium with the team and everybody. That was kind of the wrap up to camp. It was tough, it was a grind, we did a lot of two-a-days, but it was super fun, man. Just to all be together, a lot of memories of Gold Bond and things like that in the rooms and hanging out with each other, pranks and all that. Simpsonwood was always the highlight. I’m still really close with a lot of my high school buddies and guys I played with. So, they’ve been…I’ve had like 10 of them to every Super Bowl, so pretty cool that we’ve always been really close.”
Rhamondre Stevenson
Centennial HS (Las Vegas, NV)
“I remember during two-a-days, it was my junior year I believe, my homie Tishawn Barnaby passed out during practice. You know, I was from Vegas, it was hot as hell, man. There was nothing like, medically wrong with him, but he blacked out. That was probably the worst memory, we was all scared for him. I think football just from a young age taught discipline and a brotherhood. I still talk to those same teammates from high school.”
Demario ‘Pop’ Douglas
Mandarin HS (Jacksonville, FL)
“We ran like 16 100’s back-to-back. Full field sprints. That was crazy right there. Then, we’d run the stadium and we had a low key big stadium for a high school. That’s stuff I don’t miss right there. My favorite is when we used to do competitive stuff. I loved it. I feel like that’s what brings out the energy and the competitiveness. That’s how you find out where your dogs are at. I most definitely still talk to them. I got one on my team right now (Terrell Jennings). We gave each other sh*t back-and-forth every time.”
Tyquan Thornton
Booker T. Washington HS (Miami, FL)
“Back at my high school, we used to…our conditioning test, we used to do 32 110’s at 6:00 in the morning. 32 110’s, man. That’s my worst memory for sure. My best one from high school camp is probably just the times bonding with teammates. We used to do pool workouts, those were the most fun workouts right there. Just bonding with teammates, having fun and laughing. Those are boys that I grew up with, so we all still close to this day.”
Keion White
Garner Magnet HS (Garner, NC)
“I was in the South so it was hot. I remember when I played linebacker in high school, my coach was like, ‘I don’t know if I like some of ya’ll, so I’m just going to make you do up-downs.’ We did 300 up-downs straight, right there. It was like 95, 98 degrees in North Carolina. I didn’t play linebacker after that. My best one from training camp is just being out there with the guys, going through our…we had a pretty good program, so going through that program hardened us. We formed those bonds, for sure. I keep up with some of them here and there.”
Jahlani Tavai
Mira Costa HS (Manhattan Beach, CA)
“Damn, this is my 10 year anniversary. I remember, there was one day during camp we were just tired and we all just friggin slept on the field. That’s when we had two-a-days. so we slept on the field until the second practice. We had like, a few hours off and we were just like ‘frick it,’ let’s just take a nap here. Half the team decided to take a nap on the field. I think my best off the field memory is going trick-or-treating, we had a game on Halloween and we went trick-or-treating before the game…I got my group of five or six guys that I still keep in touch with.”
Joe Cardona
Granite Hills HS (El Cajon, CA)
“Two-a-days back in El Cajon, California, I think one thing I’ll always remember…this is like right before my first game, it was freshman year. We had a ‘welcome back to school’ kind of assembly and some of the guys on the freshman football team were caught acting up. We were PT’d military style. I can confirm – based on my background – that we were in fact PT’d that day. So, for about 2.5 hours in the 85, 90 degree heat we were disciplined. But, that’s a special thing for high school. You’re developing young men and those are important lessons to instill. Discipline, hard work and what it means to be on a team. Some of that stuff is still necessary. I’ve got a few friends I’ve kept in contact with. It’s a special bond, the guys you play high school football with. Ultimately, it’s those experiences that were kind of crappy while you’re doing it, they’re what everybody talks about and remembers with fond memories.”