Northwestern University Athletics
The Seniors' View of Camp Kenosha
8/16/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 16, 2010
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
KENOSHA, Wis. -- They are seniors now and well-versed on all that is Camp Kenosha. But still, even these many years later, the memories linger. "The first time? Ugh. It was rough," says the running back Stephen Simmons, thinking back to his inaugural summer in Wisconsin. "I remember trying to get through practice without messing up, trying to figure out the plays and just being completely confused. You sit up there in the lockerroom thinking, 'Why am I doing this? Is this what I really want to do? Maybe I should have run track.'"
"Looking back on it, it was kind of humbling," adds the wide receiver Sidney Stewart. "You come here your freshman year, you don't know what to expect. You think you're the man, you think you're the best, you think you're going to run in and get a starting spot, and then you're humbled. It's kind of weird to look back on it now that I am a starter and see how much I've worked to get to where I am. So it's humbling, and kind of rewarding at the same time."
"I had no idea what to expect," concludes the offensive lineman Keegan Grant. "Everyone would keep talking about, 'It's Kenosha.' There's an old saying. 'How do you spell pain?' 'K-e-n-o-s-h-a.' So I came up here, didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be a great time. After the initial shock wears off, you absolutely love coming up here."
What's the shock?
"The transition from high school to college. The tempo of it. How football really is now."
• • • • • •
The 'Cats landed in Kenosha over the weekend and then, under Monday morning's soft sky, drilled there for the first time this summer. For 18 years they have been doing this now and it is here, far from civilization, that they endure the most-rigorous preparations for the season rushing toward them. They have no restaurants to haunt or friends to tend or video games to provide some escape, and so their hours are filled only with drills and practices, with meetings and only themselves as company.
"We're going to finish up the bottom part of our pyramid tonight when Mike Jensen talks about character," Pat Fitzgerald said last Friday night, looking ahead to the exile soon awaiting him and his team. "So the foundation of our team is hopefully in place, and now we understand what it means to have a great attitude and what it means to work as hard as we can for as long as we can and how to trust ourselves, communicate and trust others. Now we take the next step as we move to Kenosha?"
What is that next step above the foundation?
"Well, now is honesty. Some guys don't like their roles. They've got to be honest with themselves and they've got to look hard at what they're doing, fundamentally and technically where they need to improve. Maybe it's just going back to their attitude. Then we've got to come together as a team. We've got to really gel. Our chemistry's really good. Our morale's high. But we've really got to come together and rely upon each other and learn how to respect the game.
"We've been going now for awhile. Now who's really going to bust their tail and empty the tank? "
• • • • • •
The grind of camp can corrode even the most solid and stolid of souls. Fitzgerald, and all of the best coaches, know this. So, yes, moments of levity cut into some days and one of them is known simply as The Freshmen Prank. "The coaches will come out and it's like, 'Freshmen, you ain't doing something right,'" explains Grant, a smile now decorating his face. "So freshmen have to go off and do a little more conditioning or something. They're all dead tired, but the seniors and upperclassmen, we know what's happening, we've all been through it. They're getting down, depressed, wondering, 'Oh my God, how many more sprints do we have to do?' But then we surprise them. It's either a watermelon-eating contest, or the seniors and upperclassmen have run in and jumped into the pool and the freshmen come in and see us swimming. That's probably the best memory I have of coming up here."
"The worst part was my freshman year, The Freshman Prank," recalls Simmons, a grimace (not a smile) on his face. "It was like 100 (degrees). It was a long, long day. It was hot and we were running sprints at the end of practice. They were acting like someone didn't make his time, a freshman. So they has us do 100 yards up and back. When we got back, we were dying and everyone else was sitting there laughing at us and eating watermelon."
"It was hot, hot. It was terrible. That's what I remember. It was hot," Stewart says, thinking back to that same day.
And what did he think when he saw the upperclassmen eating watermelon?
"I didn't know it was a joke. I was delusional. My eyes were all over the place. It was crazy. Looking back on it, it was fun. But at the time, I did not like it, didn't like it at all."
• • • • • •
"Where in the hell am I? What did I get myself into?" That is what Fitzgerald remembers thinking when he landed in Kenosha as a callow freshman.
"I didn't do the things going into my freshman year that young men do now. The training has really improved from the standpoint of importance level," he then explains. "I was just happy to be here. I was just happy to be on scholarship. I thought I'd achieved all the dreams that I had set for myself. That's when I learned how to really set goals."
And how long did it take him to appreciate Kenosha?
"Halfway through my freshman camp I realized what the difference was between high school and college. In high school you're playing with all your buddies from home, the guys you played with forever. Now you've got a team from all over the country coming together."
And so the aim of Kenosha is what?
"Chemistry. Just to form a team attitude that we're as unified and as tight as any team could possibly be. We try to put them in tough situations on the field. . . But the main goal is to form that chemistry."
"Up in Evanston, you talk about it, but you don't have a feel for it and embrace it," Grant is saying minutes later. "But when you're up here, you're away from everything, it's just you and your teammates and you really appreciate the whole bonding experience. There's no cable. We can't go out and do anything. It's just football and teammates. So you learn to appreciate everybody."
And how does that translate to a Saturday in the fall?
"In just about every aspect. You learn to understand how that guy thinks, what he feels, when he's down, when he's excited, you start to build a little trust with that guy. So when it comes to a Saturday, you just go out there and hit it, because you know exactly how that guy's going to react. You trust him to do the job. So these really are the building blocks of the season, where you learn the fundamentals you need to carry on."
Does he understand that now as a senior, we soon ask Stewart.
"I understand now. As years go along and you progress, you understand a little bit more," he answers. "But I don't think I'll fully understand until I'm removed from this stuff, five, six, seven years. My dad and others in my family who have played always tell me, 'You'll look back and you'll say it's the best time of your life.'"
• • • • • •
Still, even with such goals to be met, boys will be boys. "There's some woods over there and I followed Ross Lane, who was a receiver, a great receiver, I followed him into the woods one time, little brother, big brother kind of stuff," remembers Stewart, testifying to just this fact. "I think it was a linebacker, it might have been Malcolm Arrington, and he just started growling. I couldn't see him. I didn't know what it was and I just ran, I ran through the woods, I almost sprained my ankle. It was scary and they started laughing when I got out. 'Ha. Ha.'"
Did he hear about it all through camp?
"Oh, yeah. 'Ha, ha.'"
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