My fantasy camp experience
By: Will Vandervort
From covering and experiencing the difference between an NFL regular season game and a playoff game, to covering the NCAA basketball tournament, to covering the College World Series and experiencing everything Rosenblatt Stadium and its atmosphere has to offer, I have experienced a lot and I have a lot of good memories to go with them. Now I have one more.
On Sunday, I was Dabo Swinney’s lone guest from the media to experience his Fantasy Camp at Clemson. I don’t mean the game he had for them on Frank Howard Field. I’m talking everything from the time they arrived at the stadium at 10 a.m. through the post-game interviews.
If you get the opportunity to do this next year, you have to do it. In all, 13 men from as far away as New Jersey came and spent the weekend at Clemson to see what it was like to be a Clemson football player on game weekends.
“It was a great weekend. Our objective was to make it all about these guys that are really passionate about Clemson,” Swinney said. “We wanted to make it to where we gave them as much insight as we could possibly give them in a weekend and have a lot of fun at the same time.”
Mission accomplished.
I have only seen locker rooms that have won some sort of a championship happier than what I saw Sunday afternoon. Swinney and his coaching staff did a marvelous job reenacting everything that goes on during game days.
After a team breakfast, the new batch of Tigers, which Swinney referred to as true freshmen, arrived at the stadium at 10 a.m. on the nose and got dressed in full gear. Each participant was given his own locker which had full equipment in it from the helmet to the shoes.
I later found out that every player was allowed to keep his jersey and some of his equipment as well as his practice gear from Friday and Saturday. I will have more on the full weekend in stories to come.
At about 10:30, Swinney came into the locker room and gave the guys some instruction as if he was about to lead the real Tigers out onto the field for pregame warm ups. He told them what he expected from each one of them and then he turned things over to strength and conditioning coach Joey Batson, who went over some final instructions and then lined the players up just as he does on Saturdays in the fall.
He lined the entire team up and checked to make sure everyone’s equipment was in working order and safe before releasing them. Batson said to the fantasy campers that on real game days, this is the part when the team starts to get jacked up and knows that it is almost time to play.
He said every time he opens the door to release a group, you can hear the band playing or the crowd cheering.
After going through warm-ups and being introduced over the PA system on the Jumbotron, the team returned to the locker room. This is where Swinney went out of his way Sunday to make sure the experience was as real as it could get.
After the team got some water and gathered at the Tiger Paw at the center of the room, which is what the real team does, Swinney made sure he left them alone to gather their thoughts for about five minutes or so. These men, most of whom were engineers or business men of some sort, just sat there on one knee in the middle of that room and thought to themselves quietly. You could hear a pin drop it got so quiet at one point. Strength coach Larry Greenlee told me it was just like game day.
Swinney then entered the room and demanded all the players’ attention and at that point he gave a pre-game talk just as he would to his real team. After that, Batson did a countdown and everyone exited the locker room and headed up the ramp where they loaded the bus and were given a police escort.
On the ride around the stadium, some of the guys were standing up, like Dan Jones of Easley, and encouraging the others to live the moment. A few just sat back and enjoyed the ride, while others led the 1-2-3-4 chant. It was a pretty exciting couple of minutes to say the least.
When the bus stopped and the doors opened, a few of the guys jumped off the bus as if they were going to tackle someone. After pictures with Swinney at Howard’s Rock, all 13 players gathered at the top of the hill with Swinney and the coaches, with Frank Howard telling them “to give it 110 percent or keep their filthy hands off his rock” on the Jumbotron. After the video, Tiger Rag cranked up, the Tiger Cub fired the cannon and led the team down the hill on an orange Clemson carpet.
“To rub that rock, I have had the privilege of having my picture taken with it in the past, but to actually rub it and run down the hill, it was a phenomenal experience,” Jones said.
Afterwards, Jones led a late second half rally as he caught a one-yard touchdown pass on the last play of a seven-on-seven game called Swinney Ball to force overtime. His team eventually lost in overtime, but nonetheless it was an experience he will always cherish.
After that, players got to experience the part most athletes dread after games and practices – the post game interviews with the media. But as Floyd Elliott of Spartanburg told me “that wasn’t as bad as I had heard it was.”
And it wasn’t. There was nothing bad about Dabo Swinney’s Fantasy Camp. In fact, it was a pretty fun day, including for this sportswriter.
I have covered a lot of things in my 12 years as a sportswriter and have seen the best of the best athletes play at the highest level all the way down through the prep and recreation ranks.
From covering and experiencing the difference between an NFL regular season game and a playoff game, to covering the NCAA basketball tournament, to covering the College World Series and experiencing everything Rosenblatt Stadium and its atmosphere has to offer, I have experienced a lot and I have a lot of good memories to go with them. Now I have one more.
On Sunday, I was Dabo Swinney’s lone guest from the media to experience his Fantasy Camp at Clemson. I don’t mean the game he had for them on Frank Howard Field. I’m talking everything from the time they arrived at the stadium at 10 a.m. through the post-game interviews.
If you get the opportunity to do this next year, you have to do it. In all, 13 men from as far away as New Jersey came and spent the weekend at Clemson to see what it was like to be a Clemson football player on game weekends.
“It was a great weekend. Our objective was to make it all about these guys that are really passionate about Clemson,” Swinney said. “We wanted to make it to where we gave them as much insight as we could possibly give them in a weekend and have a lot of fun at the same time.”
Mission accomplished.
I have only seen locker rooms that have won some sort of a championship happier than what I saw Sunday afternoon. Swinney and his coaching staff did a marvelous job reenacting everything that goes on during game days.
After a team breakfast, the new batch of Tigers, which Swinney referred to as true freshmen, arrived at the stadium at 10 a.m. on the nose and got dressed in full gear. Each participant was given his own locker which had full equipment in it from the helmet to the shoes.
I later found out that every player was allowed to keep his jersey and some of his equipment as well as his practice gear from Friday and Saturday. I will have more on the full weekend in stories to come.
At about 10:30, Swinney came into the locker room and gave the guys some instruction as if he was about to lead the real Tigers out onto the field for pregame warm ups. He told them what he expected from each one of them and then he turned things over to strength and conditioning coach Joey Batson, who went over some final instructions and then lined the players up just as he does on Saturdays in the fall.
He lined the entire team up and checked to make sure everyone’s equipment was in working order and safe before releasing them. Batson said to the fantasy campers that on real game days, this is the part when the team starts to get jacked up and knows that it is almost time to play.
He said every time he opens the door to release a group, you can hear the band playing or the crowd cheering.
After going through warm-ups and being introduced over the PA system on the Jumbotron, the team returned to the locker room. This is where Swinney went out of his way Sunday to make sure the experience was as real as it could get.
After the team got some water and gathered at the Tiger Paw at the center of the room, which is what the real team does, Swinney made sure he left them alone to gather their thoughts for about five minutes or so. These men, most of whom were engineers or business men of some sort, just sat there on one knee in the middle of that room and thought to themselves quietly. You could hear a pin drop it got so quiet at one point. Strength coach Larry Greenlee told me it was just like game day.
Swinney then entered the room and demanded all the players’ attention and at that point he gave a pre-game talk just as he would to his real team. After that, Batson did a countdown and everyone exited the locker room and headed up the ramp where they loaded the bus and were given a police escort.
On the ride around the stadium, some of the guys were standing up, like Dan Jones of Easley, and encouraging the others to live the moment. A few just sat back and enjoyed the ride, while others led the 1-2-3-4 chant. It was a pretty exciting couple of minutes to say the least.
When the bus stopped and the doors opened, a few of the guys jumped off the bus as if they were going to tackle someone. After pictures with Swinney at Howard’s Rock, all 13 players gathered at the top of the hill with Swinney and the coaches, with Frank Howard telling them “to give it 110 percent or keep their filthy hands off his rock” on the Jumbotron. After the video, Tiger Rag cranked up, the Tiger Cub fired the cannon and led the team down the hill on an orange Clemson carpet.
“To rub that rock, I have had the privilege of having my picture taken with it in the past, but to actually rub it and run down the hill, it was a phenomenal experience,” Jones said.
Afterwards, Jones led a late second half rally as he caught a one-yard touchdown pass on the last play of a seven-on-seven game called Swinney Ball to force overtime. His team eventually lost in overtime, but nonetheless it was an experience he will always cherish.
After that, players got to experience the part most athletes dread after games and practices – the post game interviews with the media. But as Floyd Elliott of Spartanburg told me “that wasn’t as bad as I had heard it was.”
And it wasn’t. There was nothing bad about Dabo Swinney’s Fantasy Camp. In fact, it was a pretty fun day, including for this sportswriter.
posted by Roy Philpott @ 4:02 PM
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