The Giants.com crew members discuss their favorite training camp memories.
John Schmeelk (first training camp: 2007): There are many training camp stories I would love to tell, but I am not at liberty to divulge certain things. What happens in Albany, stays in Albany after all.
Most of my training camp memories are experiences that I had with the people that I work with. Whether it was basketball or touch football games at the end of the workday, or nights out to nearby establishments, or just fun moments in the racquetball courts where we set up our production offices. We would ride our bikes to and from the dorms to the practice facility. It’s truly what made training camp on the road special. We were all away from home with really nothing to do but work and hang out with each other.
I imagine it’s the same for the players, which is why coaches for so many years liked to take their teams away from their home areas for training camp. Is it inconvenient? Sure. My wife is not thrilled I will be in West Virginia for 10 days and she will be alone with the kids. I imagine Dan would say the same thing. Older players with families are dealing with the same stuff. But there is a different feeling walking away from a camp away from home versus what is done at the team’s home facility. You bond more.
Is it better for the team? Who knows, but it is different. I’m looking forward to experiencing it again even though I will be away from home for so long, including for my daughter’s ninth birthday, for which I am already catching heat. Again, I’m sure many of the older players with kids have similar challenges.
Apologies for the tangent. If I wanted to focus on news stories I would have to go back to Michael Strahan’s decision not to go to camp in 2007. The 2011 camp was unique because it was held at the Giants’ new practice facility for the first time because the lockout didn’t resolve itself until the summer, leaving little time for planning.
The day I always remembered from camp in Albany was arrival day, when the media gathered at the dorms and interviewed the players as they moved in. A few players always showed up with custom cars that drew a lot of attention, with Michael Jennings standing out as the star of that exhibition.
For some reason I remember the days when there were lightning warnings and Tom Coughlin had to do walkthroughs in the gym. He got so angry because he lost practice time and was always particularly ornery those days.
There were always autograph seekers on campus, and on many occasions, I got confused for Jeff Feagles from a distance, which was depressing for me given he was a decade older than I was. It’s a bald thing.
I look forward to whole new set of memories in West Virgina.