Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin. Another football season is here.
My sons and I took our seats back in July, as soon as the NFL opened its gates to training camps across the country. But unlike years past, we turned down our customary portal into the mystical world of professional football that Gillette Stadium in nearby Massachusetts offers in favor of the open road.
I have always considered myself fortunate as a lifelong resident of southeastern New England to live in one of only 32 communities across the country that hosts this passage of summer. Growing up, it was more a commute than a pilgrimage to watch the Patriots in the quaint and intimate surroundings of Bryant College just north of Providence. I'd walk across the campus mingling with players as we each made our way to the practice fields in back. Occasionally, a child my age would be entrusted with carrying a player's helmet. This was a time when the thought of making off with it never crossed anyone's mind.
It was also a time before the advent of chain-link fencing that segregated player from fan. A time before VIP seating that divided fans into castes, placing those of greater worth in bleachers on the favorable side of the chain link fence. There were once days like the one when I sat among several well-acquainted families. As practice ended, Pro Bowl safety Fred Marion walked over to us and lifted an infant girl from the arms of her mother, who was sitting next to me. He raised the child in the air, exclaiming, "Hey baby, I bet you thought Dad went fishing!" Then I slid over a bit as he hugged his wife, their first embrace in more than a week.
Sure, there were roped-off areas in those days, but they were easily side-stepped to yield unobstructed sidelines. During one full-pad scrimmage, a free agent running back from Holy Cross College caught a pass in the flat and was forced out of bounds right in front of me. He had to leap to avoid contact, and he didn't mind a bit; it came with the opportunity to play football for a living. My cost in the matter was five feet — the distance security asked everyone along the sidelines to move back. The free agent didn't fare as well, as he was cut later in the week.
Life was soon to grow busy and deprived me of such carefree consumption of those dog days of summer for several player generations, so returning eight years ago with my own children was special. For me, it was as much a plea for perpetual youth as it was a rite of passage or invocation for football.
The winds of change had by then already blown in big salaries, swelling player egos, and ever-expanding entourages, but there were still experiences to cherish. Like the time when Adam Vinatieri was walking off the field alone and drew even with my group in exodus. He kept looking expectantly at my daughter, who was holding a pen and pad, but turned her gaze away whenever he looked over. Finally, he caved. "Aren't you going to ask me for my autograph?"
That was to be Pete Carroll's final camp as head coach. He shook my son's hand that day and asked him about his hometown Pop Warner team. I wished him luck, but felt dirty in the process. I had resented the team's deterioration since the departure of Bill Parcells and I wanted him gone.
When the team moved four years ago to state-of-the-art amenities offered by their new training facilities at Gillette Stadium 20 miles to the northeast, not much changed for us in terms of proximity. But, in joining eight other NFL teams at that point that had ushered in new-age football by abandoning the intimacy of a collegiate setting, the Patriots organization inflicted a sense of loss that could not be measured in the added gasoline my car consumed.
For those who've never been, Gillette Stadium is a massive city of steel and concrete not unlike other NFL facilities. There's a water tower standing tall against the distance that makes you feel you're almost there long before the burgeoning traffic will permit. The lighthouse in the open north end zone soon comes into view, signifying another mile's worth of red lights. Lines of cones mold traffic into a controllable stream and you sort of guide your car in the general direction of waving hand-held flags. Non-compliance is an impossible option.
On our first Gillette visit, I was fortunate to have brought the Playmate along. I used it like Moses' staff to secure safe passage through a food court of hot dog, popcorn, and pretzel vendors by raising it as a reminder of the free contents within whenever the kids looked expectantly up at me. Access to the fields was contained to one grandstand of aluminum bleachers along only the west sideline of the western field. These accommodated nearly all, excepting some smaller bleachers atop a hill behind the distant north end zone. These seated the Very Important and were flanked by the Media Tent on the close side and the Friends & Family Tent on the further side. Such accommodations Fred Marion would have never tolerated.
Over the course of 10 minutes, the players may as well have emerged from Kevin Costner's cornfields, so enigmatic was their gradual appearance from beyond the far-away eastern field. They soon began a series of Pavlovian divisions and assemblages at the instruction of a foghorn. After an iteration of drills that is best described as choreographed chaos, lightning split the sky. Coach Bill Belichick blew a whistle and the scattered drill stations were set into unified motion. They moved past us, around the far end of the bleachers, then into the waiting arms of a giant bubble and the practice fields within. Everyone was going innn-side!
We descended the grandstands quickly and caught up with the aft of the procession as it was swallowed by the Bubble. When it was our turn to enter, we were stopped by security: only VIPs beyond this point. We stepped aside, into the midst of sordid rejectees bathed in Flying Elvis logo apparel and a sense of shame and abandonment. Then the skies opened up.
Today, the weather hasn't brightened much when it comes to this unique fan experience. Fourteen teams — nearly half the NFL — have migrated to the comforts of year-round training facilities, and at least two others — New York's Giants and Jets — will be joining them after next year. Like the Cahulawassee River of the fictional South, remote training camps will soon be dammed, their free flowing intimacy permanently ceased to later generations that will never know the bounty of their waters. So, my sons and I set out this summer on our own search for Deliverance. We packed the cooler, grabbed a change of clothes, and headed for New York.
Life imitated art, right up until the attendant at the parking lot on the State University of New York's picturesque Albany campus asked for five bucks to get in to see the Giants. I don't remember Burt Reynolds ever paying a dime for his riverfront space. After we passed, the attendant depressed her clicker three times. They take attendance figures nowadays.
Inside, I was mildly surprised to find Command and Control similar to that in Foxborough. The players' path from locker room to fields was cordoned off wherever it intersected with milling fans. The fields themselves were expansive, with the main one bearing Albany's Great Danes logo at mid-field. However, in July, Coach Tom Coughlin contains his troops to the practice fields beyond, and the whole contiguous array is wrapped in ... chain-link. Not your New England variety galvanized chain-link. This was a more virulent strain, installed at the foot of a slope itself too steep to negotiate, thereby forcing us lay fans ever wider of the perimeter it established. Nevertheless, unlike Ned Beatty, I was determined not to squeal like a pig throughout the ordeal of getting a respectable vantage point.
Despite the initial inhospitality, the afternoon was fun, thanks in part to Jeremy Shockey. Tight ends were working out along the fence, but his leadership was apparent even beyond audible range. He was the first to execute every blocking sled drill, and no one moved it further. This particular Sunday afternoon was helmets and shoulder pads only, but Shockey toyed just inside the borders of limited contact on every scrimmage play. He, along with Eli Manning, were the last to leave the field, but unlike Peyton's younger brother, Shockey ran from one side of the roped-off walkway to the other, signing every manner of article for which a Sharpie was also presented.
The heat had wilted my sons a bit, so the next day I lured them down the New York State Thruway with the promise of a little recreation. After the Jets camp at Hofstra University in Hempstead, we'd take in the amusements at nearby Coney Island.
I have not been on Long Island in nearly a lifetime, but little has changed. Traveling west along the Hempstead Turnpike, we passed through areas that time and redevelopment efforts have forgotten. I half-expected to see a savant in suspenders standing atop the next overpass picking the strings of his banjo. The Hofstra campus, on the other hand, is an oasis, a shady and inviting respite from the harsh sentence the rest of New York — and shortly, even the New York Jets — has handed down.
We arrived early, but the players were already on the two practice fields visible from the main entrance to North Campus, directly across a tree-lined byway from the small yet accommodating parking area. Generation Jets Fest, the Jets' private label adaptation of the NFL Experience interactive theme park, was in full operation, and the entire camp production was fan-friendly. Even the drills were set to a backdrop of rap music blaring from numerous speakers with skill position players managing a good beat. Throughout the day, Coach Eric Mangini would employ various musical genres to create the game-like confusion for which he is renown, turning the session into a choreographed performance that made this a dual-sensory experience.
Hofstra was absolutely bathed in green, so the bright red of my oldest son's Warrick Dunn jersey caught a few eyes and some ire. One fan standing next to me saw him throwing a football with his brother on the road behind us and expressed a desire for some kids to come along and mug him. When the football toss ended, both boys came over. I couldn't resist casting my eyes at the belligerent fan, but he never looked back. Guess it was time for Coney Island.
During the return drive home, I debated the success of my quest. A new age had indeed swept football since those training camps of my youth. Progress tends to seep, no matter how resolute a sentimental hack can remain against it. Teams must extract every advancement in technology to win and every win to survive in today's NFL. Notwithstanding my stories, my kids don't know otherwise. After all, they've grown up with e-mail, iPods, and Xbox, the sort of stuff for which the Cahulawassee was dammed in the first place.
Maybe I'd sleep well tonight with this epiphany. Then again, maybe I'd awake from the nightmare of an arm rising from the stilled current of bygone days seizing me by the neck.
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