Inside The Huddle: Camp Review, Looking Forward

My apologies that I didn’t get the chance to post this earlier but after the hurricane I was knocked out of power for the week then I was too focused with scrimmages over the weekend. Here is the official Camp Kenny Brook blog:

Day One: About four hours after our last breakfast with our families spent at Sachem East, we arrived at Kenny Brook. The feelings were all mixed of excitement, and anxiety for what was in store for us. Kenny Brook is a time for guys to step up and earn their role in the lineup and for some it is the chance to lose their spot. Bonds are made as a team and friendships are born, but it is a very competitive week as we all battled for spots in the starting lineup. As soon as we left the bus we unpacked the truck filled with our gear and equipment and we set up our own practice field and weight room that we used all week long.

After lunch, all linemen reported to meetings installing and reviewing all of our offensive plays into our playbook. That evening we come together as a team in the weight room for a team lift and the level of enthusiasm was through the roof. Everyone is amped and ready to play, loud chants of Sachem pride and going to the Long Island Championship were heard all night long, leaving us with the challenge to ourselves to keep the intensity all week long.

Day Two: The next day was followed up as a normal Kenny Brook day. Wake up at 5:30 a.m. and go for a run as a team. The effort put in on that run wasn’t too bad but yet very disappointing as not many players from the team actually kept pace and finished as a team dropping out of the pack and falling behind. This effort was not tolerated by the coaching staff or seniors and every day we strived more and more to finish together as a team in everything we did all week long getting better every single day which has been our motto ever since the begging of the summer. The rest of the day followed up with an offensive practice, defensive practice and a special teams practice. Overall, not a bad day, but it definitely left a lot of room for improvement.

Day 3: During the morning run a better effort was given by all and a little less people fell behind. The time it took for us to finish improved slightly, but again we were not totally satisfied by that. Fast forward to around 1:00 p.m. that afternoon and now after five practices and two morning runs, everyone was extremely tired. I felt like I had been in Kenny Brook for six weeks already, every minute felt like an hour and every day seemed like a week. Some people weren’t practicing in the afternoon saying their heads hurt or that they have become ill, and soon the number of players sitting out has increased to around 12 players. Meanwhile everyone is experiencing what they are feeling as well. It is football you’re going to have bumps and bruises and little aches everywhere but these are the types of things you need to adapt to and be mentally able to continuously put the pads on and go give it your all. This is what Kenny Brook is for; it brings out the true character in everybody. Also, it is now day three of three practices per day, and a morning run every day and some of the underclassmen did not pack accordingly. I remember that evening the seniors sitting around the dinner table laughing over the stories of guys bringing six pairs of underwear, and 12 pairs of socks for a week consisting of basically 20 practices. Thankfully the following day was parent’s day and received some extra clothes and needs.

Day Four: Parent’s day was overall, in my opinion, the best day of camp. Although some of us will not admit it, everyone missed their families while at Kenny Brook, and like I said before it felt like I had been there a lot longer then I actually was, and I was starting to miss home.

The morning run was better and even less dropped out and our goal for the next day was for no one to drop out at all. After the run is complete as we waited for the few that fell back, Coach Woj gave one of the best speeches I have ever heard, inspiring everyone on the roster. He was saying how we are only as good as our weakest link and how we are a chain of 11 and if one little link on the chain isn’t as strong as the others, it will break the entire chain. He then went on to say the only way to make a chain is to put it through intense heat and fire to bond it together, and he referred to all the hard work we put in at Kenny Brook as the fire and how all week we have been becoming more and more as a team and a chain unit of 11 guys coming together on the field to accomplish the same goal.

All of the sudden we were finishing everything together and everyone was keeping pace and were becoming overall stronger as a team. Leaders stepped up and pushed others to make them better and as a result making the entire team a lot better as a unit.

The first practice we had was offensive practice and our parents got to come up and watch us. It was great. We were all in sync and on the same page and finally everything was coming together. We then got to spend lunch with our parents and family who we missed all week while at camp, exchanged hugs and “I Love You’s” and then it was back to work for the defensive practice that night.

Defense went just as well as the offense did, but the true team bonding occurred that evening at the hill, overlooking the entire camp grounds. As a tradition every night we all go up to the highest point of the camp site, we break it down, sing our fight song, and just talk before we go to bed and call it a day. We always ask different people the big question “What does Sachem Football meen to you?” Since it was the last night Coach Dee would be there with us, all the seniors on the team talked and answered the big question. Now I have been up there every night I have ever been at Kenny Brook and never have I ever experienced something like this. Some of the speeches given by the seniors drew others to tears as people were actually standing up in front of everyone and pouring their hearts out into their speeches. Some people were really getting personal and sharing how they use football as an escape to the life that they live outside of football and others were sharing their whole story about how they came up and how important the program is to them. For someone to do this takes a lot of guts and heart it’s something that they wouldn’t just share with anyone, but stuff they would only share with family, and that’s exactly what we have become. I felt that while I was giving my speech it was me talking to my 60 brothers that I spend basically every day with until November. Like I said before, it’s a tradition. It’s always been done but never in a way like this where everybody was sharing such personal and heartwarming stories that would only be shared with their family.

Day Five: The next day on the last morning run of the week, we finally succeeded in our goal of keeping everyone together and we demolished our previous time by four minutes. The feeling was great. I felt like we all accomplished something together as a family for the very first time. Later that day we packed the truck and camp was officially over.

It was fun but grueling at the same time as we went through rigorous practices where you must run a minimum of 1,000 yards just in order to begin practice, morning runs at five in the morning and team lifts.

Overall our mission was accomplished. Our goal was to get better every day, and we did indeed do just that. We have developed into a family and are now officially ready for C.I on Friday night.