A Rumble In The Distance

Thunder shakes the blue dawn over Bettendorf.  Nary a cloud in the sky, but the foundation of TouVelle Stadium shudders with the collective weight of the varsity Bulldogs.  Cruel and unusual punishment may be unconstitutional, but it is also an effective training technique.  After an hour in the weight room, the football team heads to the field to separate the committed from the dispassionate on a Saturday morning.  In some future fourth quarter, it will make the difference.

The old guy (me) training for the next climb with the fifty-pound backpack plodding up and down the stadium steps watches it all.  So does Coach Freking.  He dispenses encouragement, and rather brutal advice.  “Don’t puke on my beautiful football field.  Puke on the track.”.  Note to self, puke on the track.

The linemen are easy to identify.  They’re the big guys still wearing t-shirts.  Everyone else is shirtless in the Death Valley heat and New Orleans humidity.  David on the pedestal in Florence has more body fat than these kids, and I can barely recognize the boys I know from Little League.  Michelangelo sculpted in marble.  Coach Freking carves weakness from flesh, and spirit. 

It starts with planking or jumping rope.  One or the other.  Pick a partner and do not rest.  Planking or jumping rope.  No resting.  When that seems like it can’t go on anymore, the thunder begins.  Line up on the stadium steps.  Good athletic position.  Jump over the bleacher seat, and the next and the next, and the next, until you get to the top.  Ready?  Go. 

The running backs and linebackers take the lead.  The receivers and defensive backs are just behind them.  The quarterbacks are in there somewhere.  The guys in the t-shirts are last, but they never quit.  The thunder ends.  Careful on the way down, and repeat too many times to count.  Really.  Don’t count.  It will just make it worse, and there’s more to follow.  Grab a drink.  Let’s go. 

So goes the pre-season conditioning.  Fierce.  Grueling.  Effective.

What is most effective is taken for granted.  The team is forged in the blast furnace of conditioning.  Make it through this – past the pain, past the strong desire but frustrating inability to vomit – and the rest of it will be easy.  The practices.  The losses.  The fourth and long in the freezing rain.  Almost anything you can endure in high school is made easier on mornings like this except, perhaps, girls.

The team is forged here, and that it is forged on school grounds is transformational.  This place you sweat and bleed together, is the same place you learn, hope and dream together.  It is where the community hopes and dreams together.  That’s why thousands show up on Friday nights, and why you’ll return when you can ... no matter where your life may lead you. 

Place matters not because of place, but because of people.         

An update - Davenport North - the only DCSD team with a ball damond on school grounds - goes to State again.  My theory on the importance of athletic facilities on school grounds holds.