The `Birds getting too Close for Comfort
Jeff Foley
Saturday July 22, 2000
But there are only a handful of players at the cafeteria this morning. One of my roommates, wide receiver/defensive back Dale Koscielski, says many players are now choosing sleep over food. Team meals are not a requirement, he says.
This is news to me. If I’d known, I would have kept my aching body in bed, which would have pleased the cafeteria workers. When Dale and I are the first to walk in, a little old lady wearing a white apron and hat glares.
“They’re here,” she says in a cigarette-stained voice, sounding like one of Marge Simpson’s sisters from the cartoon The Simpson’s.
Our presence doesn’t have much effect though. There is no hot food available when we arrive, and there’s none 20 minutes later. The choices are fruit and cold cereal. The workers don’t seem to be in a hurry to remedy the food shortage.
Led Zeppelin blasts over the PA system as more players stumble in. By 7:10, about half the team has shown up, looking like they just stepped out of a rumble. Limps and dark circles underneath eyes prevail. No one complains about the lack of pancakes or eggs. Instead, most players force down fruit and juice, and head to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for an 8:30 practice, the first of two in the day. The earlier the players get there, the more time there is to sit in the locker room and relax.
“There’s a lot less yapping as camp goes on,” Dale says.
But the locker room at RPI is plenty loud.
“Why would we put them in mesh bags?” equipment manager Tom Frater shouts, his Canadian accent dominating the locker room. For a moment, he takes my mind off the fact that the room is freezing. “I specifically told her, ‘Don’t untie the bags.’ What an idiot!”
Frater is bent over a hip-high pile of clothes – shorts, T-shirts, socks and jockstraps. He’s tossing them left and right, creating new piles all over the room. The laundry is supposed to be separated, kept apart by mesh bags bearing player’s last names. But the girl who gets paid to wash and dry the laundry apparently decided to untie the bags last night, mixing everything together. This is a bad situation, as almost nobody had thought to scribble their name on jockstraps or shorts. Linemen Sean Tremblay and Chris Snyder lend Frater a hand. Soon the entire team is hunting through stacks of clothes.
“These guys are like somebody at Champion outlet,” assistant trainer Jay Geiger says. “They’re all looking through the $2.99 pile.”
A rookie walks past Geiger, carrying a jockstrap with his fingertips. Judging by how precariously he holds the equipment and the look of disgust on his face, he’s not really sure if it’s his.
“How’s it feel to wear another man’s jock?” Geiger asks. “I wouldn’t want my boys anywhere near your boys.”
Frater, meanwhile, looks like he hasn’t slept in days. His face is dark with scruff and what little hair the 20-something-year-old has left is a mess. A self-proclaimed “professional water boy,” Frater steps away from the clothing, curses flowing from his mouth like beer from a keg as he holds a cell phone to his ear. “Where is she? This is ridiculous!”
“Come on, Tom,” wide receiver/linebacker Greg Hopkins chides. “You’re better than this.”
Frater ignores Hopkins and puts the phone away. “Why would she do that? Like we have them in bags for no reason. And she knew they were for the Firebirds. For Chrissakes!”
“Hey, Tom,” says 298-pounder Kyle Moore-Brown, smiling wide as he launches into an imitation of the WWF’s The Rock for the hundredth time during camp. “I’m gonna tell you what you can do with all these clothes. You’re gonna put all the socks in this pile, put all the drawers in this pile … And stick ‘em straight up your candy ass!”
Frater’s face twists in anger. He storms out of the locker room, chased by a barrage of laughter and bad Canadian accents.
“Eh, what’s that all a-bout?” eighth-year lineman Mark Valvo says. “I’m gowna have a smoke! Eh! And a bottle of Molson.”
Ricky Hall, a first-year lineman from Marshall University, tracks Frater down outside and requests a pair of gloves. Frater tells Hall no, he doesn’t have gloves to give out. At Marshall, Hall helped his squad post a 50-7 record over four years – “You can’t beat that with a bat,” he says. – and was treated like a big man on campus. But as far as the 290-pounder is concerned, after sitting out the year immediately following his graduation, being denied gloves or dealing with mixed up laundry is not a big deal.
“It’s football,” the Georgia native says. “All I know is I miss the game, and I still wanna play. This is my opportunity, and you don’t get too many. There’s a million guys out there that want to be in my position. I’m just enjoying it, making the most of it ... So they can’t get you everything you think you need. You gotta bring your own things. I know right now I still wanna play football, so I’m not gonna complain about it. I been through all that. It’s not the NFL. Tom told me, ‘You’re not at Marshall.’ You can’t complain about it. I just wanna play. You get shoulder pads and a helmet. That’s all you need.”
Jeff Foley was a writer for ArenaFan Online from 2000 to 2001.
