Dear Pro Player Insiders,
(Summer)Camp is great. They are treating me very well! Latrobe Pa, is very nice. The weather has been very mild. I have not seen the archery area, or the lake activities, well come to think of it I don’t think they have those here. I just see a lot of people, and I mean A LOT of people. Oh yeah, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are here as well.
Every year I am fortunate enough to spent a weekend with the Steelers at camp. It’s become a tradition for me and a buddy of mine, kind of like a guys weekend. This year I had the opportunity to eat dinner with the team at St Vincent’s college as well as talk to a bunch of the guys. I wanted to give you my five biggest take-ways from camp…
- Hercules himself is now a coach.
Former Washington Redskin Mike Sellars is now a coaching assistant with the team and you cannot miss this guy on the field, he is enormous!! I have had the opportunity to do lots of things with some very “fit” guys but Mike Sellars, as you can see from the pic, is un-human.
- Ben Roethlisberger wants to be a garbage man.
Big Ben is fantastic at taking out the garbage, however he is also really becoming a great mentor to the other QB’s. In this drill the quarterbacks are about 30 yards or so away trying to through the ball in the trash can. Most of the time, Ben was retrieving the ball for his teammates and offering words of encouragement (aka making fun of) whoever missed. Even offensive co-ordinator Todd Haley was making the throws.
- People seem to really like the Steelers.
The amount of people that were at the two practices I was at was incredible, I think its the most I have seen at camp yet. Friday night I was hanging with Steelers head of PR Burt Lauten and Youth Football co-ordinator Mike Marchinsky and they seemed to agree that people reallllllyyy like the Steelers. They told me about people coming from all over the world to see camp, even this one guy who had to navigate a rather large black bear to get there. (True story and yes I know the guy…)
- Sometimes people fight in football for real.
This team is loud, for the first time in a long time there is some serious trash talking, no doubt egged on by the return of Joey Porter to the coaching staff. It has resulted in a couple of very real fights. I am not going to call anyone out here in particular, but as one Steeler high up said when asked about the fighting “It’s good, we need that fire back.”
- The Steelers are now training with magical powers.
Training camp is located at the bottom of a rainbow as you can see from the picture, therefore magic is in play. The team would not officially tell me about the magic, but let’s just say there was a wink.
Camp is great and I cannot wait for the season to start. In all seriousness, this team looks good… I mean really good. They are young, fast, and loud. Trust me, don’t think for one minute that the loud part is not important. My prediction… the Steelers will go 11-5 this year and will win the division.
As long as Ben does not become a trash man…
Good eatings!
