Bryan Burwell

MEQUON, Wisc. - The little boys arrive early and they leave late. They line the iron fences and the giant wooden barricades just outside the gates of Concordia University’s Century Stadium, sporting their colorful Boys Club T-shirts and their pint-sized NFL jerseys. They cling to their strategic outposts along the asphalt ramp that leads these giant pro football players on a long walk from the practice field to the training camp locker room.

With a Sharpie in one hand and just about anything else that has a flat surface clutched in the other, the boys reach over the fence or slip under the giant wooden barricades waiting for some sweaty player to walk by and make their day.

The kids try bluntness. “Hey 72!! Sign this!!”

They try politeness. “Ooooooh, oooooh, ooooooh, Mr. Holt, sir. Can you pul-eeeeze sign my jersey?”

They try flattery. “Hey Marc, Marc, Marc! Over here! You’re my favorite player.”

And when words won’t do, some of these little mop tops aren’t above the cute-and-adorable strategy, a fail-safe staple that involves an innocent-looking 6-year-old just standing there looking like a lost little puppy in search of a sympathetic pat on the head.

The baseball poets always cast their romantic eyes toward their game’s spring training as if it's the only idyllic paradise in sports. But the baseball dreamers never got a glimpse of this particular slice of football heaven. Atop a breathtaking bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, there’s no better place for athletic romance than this newest entry into the NFL’s climate-controlled summer Cheese League. The St. Louis Rams have come to Concordia to escape the 98-degree heat and 100-percent humidity of another oppressive Midwest summer, and they’ve stumbled into Shangri La. The constant breeze coming off the lake not only acts as nature’s perfect air conditioner for the practice field, but also sends this intoxicating aroma of grilled brats and barbecue wafting from a nearby hospitality tent.

I am a football romantic, and this is my annual ode to the joys of NFL training camp. With a Street & Smith’s annual in one hand and the sports pages in the other, as a starry-eyed kid, I used to read about places like Carlisle and Latrobe, Pa., or Thousand Oaks, Calif., and be convinced that they were exotic football playlands.

Now as a more practical adult who has been exposed to training camp’s “Groundhog’s Day” existence of playbooks and ice packs, two-a-day practices and endless meetings, I’ve discovered that beyond the grinding, exhausting and violent world of an NFL training camp, the true romance lies in the eyes of those wide-eyed kids with and their unfettered hero-worship.

The romance is seeing those boys lined up for autographs twice a day in Mequon, and the kids in Green Bay loaning their bikes to Packers players to ride to and from practice. It’s probably why even after sweating through two-plus hours of body slamming, most players willingly stand there forever signing every bit of memorabilia shoved in their faces even though they trudge off that practice field exhausted after two-a-days.

The rest of the time at camp has little time for romance. “You can dress it up all you want, change the scenery every day,” says Rams linebacker Chris Draft. “But what training camp comes down to for the players after the first day is nothing more than a field, a bed, meeting rooms and food.”

There’s more to it than that, of course. But once the grind begins with early-morning breakfast, trips to the training room, a two-hour morning practice, lunch, nap, training room again, another practice, dinner, late-night meetings, late-night snack, curfew and more sleep, it feels like a recurring dream/nightmare. The rookies dream of making it in the NFL and pretend to ignore the more likely scenario that any day now someone will ask for their playbook and hand them a ticket home.

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