I am dead tired today, but since this was a good day and maybe my last full day with the team, I wanted to share it with you guys.
Our HC, Larry Terry, have signed a contract obligating the team to help fill all dorms with bed lofts. For those of you who might not know what that is, a bed loft is a bed on pillars allowing for optimal use of space in a dorm room. We spend the other day doing the same thing. Today we filled two dorms with these metal constructions. We are talking buildings with four floors and no elevators. We literally moved hundreds of these – and not without complaining. We did not have keys for the dorm rooms, so the bed lofts were left outside the rooms. When we were finally done moving them in, the guy with the key showed up and we had to go back in to actually move the bed loft all the way into the rooms. It took hours, but brought in 8000 US Dollars. Those money will be spend on covering new home uniforms for the team. It is done this way every year.
As a result of all this heavy work, practice was moved back two hours. Nobody was happy about that. The Athletic training staff consisting of 12 employees had to stay an extra two hours and the cantina was open for an extra two hours. In this situation, however, it is easy to tell that the football team is valued and prioritized. University of Wisconsin La Crosse seems to be all about sports. They have track and cross country, volleyball, soccer, wrestling, basketball, gymnastics, softball and swimming and diving.
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse football team is predicted to finish fifth in the 2010 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Preseason Poll, according to the league's sports information directors. The ranking can be found online including additional information about the teams and valuable players (http://www.uwlathletics.com/news/2010/8/19/FB_0819102320.aspx).
After bed lofting, we had to go directly to practice. The coaching staff thought about canceling, but this is officially game. Therefore everybody showed up to practice at 5. Today we did not have time Togo ice down. I have gowned accustomed to the ice buckets, so my schins were absolutely killing me. I made the most of practice anyways. The WR coach, Frank Tierney, has started to grade us, so we have to catch everything. Since all the grey shirts and most of the cuts have been made, I finally get a lot of reps. I performed very well in both one on ones and individuals, so it was a good day. The Baltimore Ravens had a scout watching our practice and even though he couldn't care less about me, I find it very motivating to have him on the sidelines.
My routes are really improving. Wide outs over here have a better sense of the Qb’s read out of various formations. That means more time for double moves etc. It might sound simple enough, but I get a feeling that this kind of understanding is developed over years in the sport. We are not explicitly told about the read, the players just know. I have been taught a lot of cool moves that I am eager to test out in Denmark :)