Have camp, will travel
IS WEST VIRGINIA REALLY ALMOST HEAVEN? THE TEXANS HOPE SO AS THEY HEAD EAST TO KICK OFF TRAINING CAMP
As the Texans head for West Virginia, we look at the evolution of NFL training camps.
G oogle Maps says it requires a shade over 18 hours to drive the 1,208 miles from the Texans’ Methodist Training Center on Kirby Drive to their new training camp home at The Greenbrier, in White Sulfur Springs, W. Va. The far-afield, nearly month-long detour to the east, however, is intended to lay the necessary groundwork for an almost equidistant — 1,178 miles, 17½ hours by car — trip north to Minneapolis in early February.
In their first 15 sultry summers of training at home in Houston, the Texans failed to reach the Super Bowl. Owner Bob McNair decided spending a few extra millions to temporarily relocate in the cooler rural climes of the Appalachian foothills would be worth the expense on the off chance that a change of scenery and climate in the early going might lead at least indirectly to a game on Feb. 4 against the NFC champions in the Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium.
The ultimate irony, of course, would be the Texans facing New Orleans in Minneapolis. It was the Saints’ leaving The Greenbrier, which had built them a $30 million practice facility, after three years and three 7-9 no-playoff seasons that opened the door for the Texans becoming West Virginia’s temporary team.
Jim Justice, the state’s only billionaire (coal mining, agriculture) and, since January, also the governor, owns The Greenbrier and was instrumental in snaring the Saints. Coach Sean Payton had fallen for the pastoral setting after attending the PGA Tour’s Greenbrier Classic, so it was an easy sell, especially after Justice agreed to deeply discount his luxe accommodations, charging the team $150 per room per night vs. the regular $400-plus seasonal rate, a deal the Texans are presumably receiving as well.
Most stay close to home
Truth to tell, though, the nature of training camp has changed so much since the last collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the players got hammered out in 2011 that a more comfortable preseason environment — daily highs will be in the low 80s with temperatures falling into the high 50s overnight while the Texans are ensconced in the posh, historic resort from Tuesday through Aug. 17 — isn’t likely to have much impact six months down the road.
The sometimes three-a-day, full-pads practice regimen instituted by Sid Gillman when he moved the Oilers from Kerrville to Huntsville to toughen them up in 1974 would be as foreign to the modern NFL player as a leather helmet or a dropkicked field goal would be (But, note, Gillman’s harsh measures worked; the Oilers improved from back-to-back 1-13 finishes to 7-7). Most teams rarely tackle for real
they’re one of just three teams training beyond state lines and Spartanburg, where the Carolina Panthers base themselves, is barely in South Carolina, less than an hour and a half from Charlotte.
Only Texas was in the rear view mirror when the 18-wheelers carrying equipment hit the road. The Dallas Cowboys will do the bulk of their prep work on the other side of the country from the Texans in Oxnard, Calif., where they have spent various periods in their history, having won two Super Bowls and played in three others back in the 1970s while calling neighboring Thousand Oaks home.
But they also won three Super Bowls — in three tries — in the 1990s in seasons they headed down I-35 to start work at St. Edward’s University in Austin.
Oddly, Texas’ two teams seem to have it backward. After all, the Greenbrier calls itself “America’s Resort” and we all know what the Cowboys call themselves.
Have camp, will travel
The first pro football training camp in Houston was the nascent Oilers’ at the University of Houston in 1960. After winning the inaugural AFL title, owner Bud Adams rewarded his team with a trip to Honolulu the following summer. That first seemed a bad idea when Adams’ second team got off to a 1-3-1 start, costing Lou Rymkus his job as head coach, but the Oilers pulled things together and repeated as champions. Nonetheless, Adams stayed put the next year, setting up camp at what was then Ellington Air Force Base.
They tried altitude training at Colorado College in Colorado Springs for a year in 1963 — elevation 6,035 feet — before returning to their own near sea-level practice facility at Fannin and North Braeswood from 1964 through 1966, then spent the next three decades until they moved to Tennessee wandering around Texas.
They made Kerrville’s Schreiner Institute their Hill Country oasis from 1967 through 1973 before basing from 1974 through 1976 at Sam Houston State in Huntsville. The next stop would be an oppressively hot, ill-fated summer in the Piney Woods
at Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches in 1977, when 36 players would be hospitalized for heat-related issues.
That prompted Bum Phillips to flee west to San Angelo and there they stayed until 1987 — flying players in and out was always logistically difficult, but the mornings could be delightfully cool — before moving to Southwest Texas State University at San Marcos (1988-90) and, finally, Trinity University in San Antonio (1991-96). Media types, staying in Riverwalk hotels, loved that chapter.
Again, to expand on how NFL camps have evolved, Phillips’ last one in San Angelo, and his last with the Oilers, in 1980 lasted forever, kicking off before the Fourth of July. Ken Stabler was taking over at quarterback so Phillips thought the extra work would
do his offense good, but he also liked to trailer his horses to San Angelo, putting them through their paces when he wasn’t putting the Oilers through theirs.
Speaking of Stabler … the night before the blessedly long-in-coming final practice, the ex-Raider had a little bit too much fun at a bar not far from the Angelo State campus and never made it to the field the next morning. Asked about Stabler’s absence, Phillips first said the quarterback had a touch of the flu but confessed after being pressed — a reporter had witnessed the previous evening’s merrymaking — that Snake would indeed incur a fine for having fallen ill.
When McNair landed the Texans franchise, he believed the team needed to train in Houston, the occasionally dangerous high heat indexes notwithstanding, to help establish its brand. So, in order to make it easy for their new fan base to attend open practices and get a little face time with the players, they stayed put through three head coaches before deciding to try something different.
If it’s broke …