The Few, The Proud

I have a tag for "Workday Wednesday" on here. Throughout most of the world, Wednesday is the very middle of the work week. Or, as the Geico Camel might say: Hump Daaaaay!

For high school football players, Wednesday is the very heart of our practice week. Typically, Monday represents a first look at Friday's opponent. Tuesday is a ramp up day, and Thursday a ramp down day, preparing for Friday. Wednesday is the peak, the last hard work day before Friday's contest. Hence, Workday Wednesday.

I like to use the tag to highlight some of the behind-the-scenes grunt work that our players put in. Football ranks very low in the contest to practice ratio. That is to say, a lot of preparation time goes into a single Friday night game, where other sports have more frequent contests. That means we're putting in a lot of work for a slim shot at our reward.

Today, I wanted to reflect on how we began the season with our workman's attitude. Followers of the program know that our first day of official practice, we don't usually do "football" things. We're not holding drills or lining up or throwing passes. We like to begin with some down-and-dirty, team-building type activities.

This year, I mentioned that we let some Marines run our first practice. I wanted to give you a better picture of what that looked like.

Had you attended the first day of practice, you would have been confronted with a scene right out of the beginning of a war movie. Parking your car, you would have had to wait for a line of players on a rope to go by. A few seconds later, the mottled green and black Humvee they were pulling would pass, a camouflaged man yelling out of the driver side window. Only after shutting off your own engine would you realize that big machine hadn't been running.

Stepping from your nice, air-conditioned interior, a wave of heat would hit you. Despite the recent unseasonably cool weather, it was a normal Indiana August a few weeks ago. Humid. Hot. Distinctly unpleasant.

Walking toward the field, another group of players would jog by you, led by their own Marine. They're not quite in lockstep, or matching dual lines, but the resemblance to the typical basic training movie scene is uncanny.

To your right, the tackling dummies are being broken in. By broken in, I mean pummeled by players. While being "encouraged" by a Marine Drill Sergeant. Think Full Metal Jacket, but a little more PG. These marines were polite, if tough. They realized we weren't going to war. Not their kind of war, anyway.

As you make your way across the field, you would need to dodge managers running to and fro with water bottles. It's imperative to keep hydrated when you're working. The sounds of effort fill the air. Grunts. Shouts. Calls for coordination and encouragement. Dust from the dry field starts to tickle your through and, for a moment, you think about snagging one of those water bottles.

A young man with another player carried fireman-style across his shoulders crosses your path, dripping with sweat.

Nah, he needs it more.

It's very easy to imagine a field of mud and razor wire, soon-to-be Marines crawling beneath with live fire in the air for ambiance. We didn't go quite that far. There was no mud, or shots fired, or wire. Plenty of crawling, though.

As you stand there, taking it all in, you may wonder: Are they preparing to play a game or fight a battle?

Yes.

Is every other team doing something like this?

No.

Did any of them outwork us on that first day?

Not likely.

It takes guts to be a Rock. You better believe our players figured that out on Day One. Not everyone can be a Rock. But the few, the proud... well, they're not Marines. But for a day, they got just a small taste of what that might be like. I bet every other workday will feel like a piece of cake. One does not simply walk into Lucas Oil Stadium.

Go Rocks. Go America. Oorah.