Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 15, 1995 TAG: 9507170129
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ED HARDIN LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: SPARTANBURG, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
The expansion Carolina Panthers, one of two new NFL teams, will not take the field until today and will not wear full pads until Sunday, but the equipment they brought in Friday suggested a spartan life for the next five weeks. Linebacker Carlton Bailey brought his bible.
``You need a lot of prayer to make it through the tough times,'' he said. Coach Dom Capers brought very little. ``Just some casual clothes,'' he said. ``I only need a few things.''
He didn't bring anything to read, other than a stack of playbooks, and he hinted that he didn't want to see any other books in the players' rooms.
``I assume their free time will be spent in their rooms relaxing,'' Capers said. ``I don't think you'll see a lot of players out running around.''
At least not after today. The players will be asked to endure 14 40-yard sprints this afternoon, just as the temperature is expected to hit 100 degrees in Spartanburg. That will come after a 6:45 wake-up call, breakfast at 7:15, meetings from nine to 11, and lunch.
By lunchtime today the Panthers hope to have all 90 players in camp, including rookies Kerry Collins, Tyrone Poole, Blake Brockermeyer and Shawn King. All but Collins had agreed to terms with the team by late Friday afternoon, and Collins was close to signing, according to agent Leigh Steinberg.
``We could get on an overnight flight if we have to,'' Steinberg said Friday evening. ``There's a lot of day left.''
Brockermeyer and King agreed to contract terms earlier Friday, and Poole, the team's No.2 pick out of Fort Valley State, agreed late in the day to a four-year deal expected to pay the rookie defensive back more than $700,000 a year. Poole received a $1.2 million signing bonus. All four of the top rookies missed the 5 p.m. meeting Friday because of last-day contract negotiations, but team president MIke McCormack said that it was still a good day.
``Not bad, most of these contracts could have been done the first week in June,'' McCormack said. The activities Friday night included the team's first official meeting, in which rookies are hazed and asked to sing their school's fight song.
``The best thing I like about training camp is being able to come down on the rookies a little bit,'' said Bailey, an eighth-year linebacker out of North Carolina.
Bailey sang the Star Spangled Banner when he was a rookie with the Buffalo Bills. It was the only song he was sure he knew the words to.
Jack Trudeau, the veteran quarterback competing for the starting job with Frank Reich, was a rookie 11 years ago, which makes him something of a training camp veteran. His advice to the rookie s? Don't take it so seriously. Otherwise, you'll wake up at 4 a.m. screaming out audibles.
``Camp gets monotonous,'' Trudeau said. ``The third or fourth week it seems like you did the same thing yesterday. If you think about it 24 hours a day you have a problem. I've woke up in the middle of the night - Check This! Check That! - audibly.''
A lot of players aren't expected to be in camp by the third or fourth week. By then, the Panthers will have played two games and will have whittled the 90-man roster down to about 75 players or so.
``Once it becomes obvious that the player is not going to make the team, that's when you make the decision. It's out of fairness to the player.''
But it's also the brutal reality of training camp. With all the 40-yard dashes and the regimen of meetings and workouts in 100-degree temperatures, the release is what players fear most. ``Joe Montana used to say he went to camp every year figuring he had to win a job,'' Reich said earlier this week. ``That's the attitude I think you have to have.''
Reich said the heat will bring out the best and the worst for all the players in the next few weeks but the solitude of Spartanburg will keep everyone concentrating.
As the players drove up one by one on Friday, no one was thinking about the Spartanburg night life.
``There's not going to be a lot of free time,'' Capers said.
On the other hand ... During a press briefing Friday evening, a USAir deliveryman walked in with a set of golf clubs over his shoulder for one of the players.
``These are for Alan Haller [third-year cornerback].''
McCormack looked up at him and said: ``I hope that's a joke.''
by CNB