OL Toner offers inside look at ‘Camp Cupcake’
It’s been referred to more than once over the past couple years as “Camp Cupcake” by their head coach.
Ask any Cardinals player if training camp is all sugary sweet with frosting on top, however, and you’re likely to find a sweaty and smelly, dead-on-his-feet tired fellow who, after 16 hours of basically nothing but football, will tell you it’s more like “Camp Coma.”
That’s what azcentral sports learned when we cornered second-year pro Cole Toner, an offensive lineman out of Harvard, and asked him to detail what a typical day is like in the NFL during training camp. It’s not nearly as candy-coated as Bruce Arians might like to call it, even though two-a-days have long since been banned and they limit the number of times you get to hit in pads.
But make no mistake: There are no cupcakes available in the chow line. Ever.
Up and at ‘em
Toner starts his day by waking up at 7 a.m., crawling out of his bed across the street from University of Phoenix Stadium at the Renaissance Hotel – where the entire team stays during camp. By 7:15, he is downstairs ready to go on the air for his daily radio segments on Arizona Sports 98.7 with Ron Wolfley and Doug Franz.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” Toner said of his newfound fame on the Cardinals’ flagship station. “I think I’m getting better at it as camp goes on.”
From there, it’s breakfast, where Toner usually grabs a couple pieces of toast – “It’s usually with cream cheese, jelly and sometimes I mix it with honey,” he said. He also eats eggs, bacon “or whatever meat they have,” and some fruit. “The burritos are good there sometimes,” he added.
Toner then heads to the first of several meetings of the day. They start at 8:30 sharp. First, it’s an overall team meeting and then a quick meeting among those who participate on special teams. “For the big guys, it’s not very long – like five, 10 minutes,” he says. After that, it’s positional group meetings, which can last up