Mountain Camp 2008

About three weeks ago I got a call from my boss at the radio station asking me if I ever wanted to coach football. I said, "heck yeah, but I don't know where it would ever fit!" I was of course referring to my schedule which is already pretty packed! He said, "we'll work with you. I am going to have the head coach give you a call sometime."

I already knew the head coach and had talked to him about coaching but I honestly didn't see how it would work until Charlie gave me the go-ahead to take a ton of time off work. It won't all be off, he still wants me to call in updates from the sidelines, but I won't be in the studio... anyway, a week later the coach called me and asked me to show up the next morning at 6 AM. I did, a few minutes late, but from that moment on I have been with the team a lot.

This last week was 'mountain camp' and it was literally 10,000 feet up on top of the Uinta mountains. I showed up the 2nd day and left the night before everyone else left. It was fun, and even though I didn't run like the kids did I came home sore, sunburnt and tired.

Lets run down the week... You gotta have good food, and here is the grill and the cook for Thursday night:
Throughout the week, the kids competed. Head coach Harding felt that this was something they lacked last year. So, not only with every race, run and work out, the kids got to do 'gladiator' type events. When the parents came up Thursday night, they had the gladiators (aka the seniors) against the best underclassmen in each event. Below you can see the joust in action, with all the other players, coaches and parents watching.
Here is the gauntlet, where the underclassmen have to run by four gladiators to reach the other side (without stepping out of bounds). The best time won.
I can't remember what this one was called, but the players had to run on the 2x4 without touching grass and take one ball to the other side and back... all while gladiators are throwing bags at them.
Another event was the wrestling, sumo style. The basic goal is to get the other person out of the ring. This one got pretty rough, but all the kids learned to compete and keep their heads on straight.

The team's motto is "Unity is our strength" and they learned to work together at camp. It will be interesting to see how this new group of Varsity leaders brings the program back from their disappointments of last year. Last year, they were 1-8. Uintah has a great football tradition, they took state the same year I did with Orem back in 1994 playing right after us on the old slippery Rice stadium.... and this year they will be back.