Friday, July 25, 2003
The Pittsburgh coach dislikes the new training camp trend in the NFL.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher spent the last four weeks watching his three teenage daughters play basketball in camps and summertime tournaments all over the East Coast.
He did so much traveling, he's ready for a vacation. He's ready for a training camp.
"I'm basketballed out," Cowher said Monday. "I'm kind of looking forward to football."
His players may disagree -- they universally choose training camp as their least favorite time of year -- but Cowher thinks a camp that brings a team together in a relatively isolated area for nearly a month is a necessity, not an option.
Growing trend
That's why Cowher dislikes a growing trend in the NFL to stage training camps at regular-season practice sites.
Thirteen of the league's 32 teams will stay at home for camp, and two -- the Titans and Broncos -- will allow their players to go home at night, just as they do during the season.
Titans coach Jeff Fisher, who despised the hazing that occurs during camp and the tedium that quickly sets in, is one of the NFL's chief proponents of making training camp as much like the season as possible.
Fisher contends that forcing players to share cramped living quarters for a month on a college campus, away from their families and the routines of life, does nothing to promote team chemistry or a winning season.
Cowher, who played in the NFL at the same time Fisher did, doesn't understand that line of thinking.
"Everyone wants to be the new people that buck the trend, they want to be trendsetters," Cowher said. "It's a great game, [but] we have too many trendsetters."
Off to Latrobe
That's why the don't-mess-with-tradition Steelers will hold camp at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., for the 37th consecutive summer, starting Friday, and Cowher has no plans to change that.
An hour's drive from Pittsburgh, St. Vincent is close enough that players can go home on their off days, but too far away to allow them to commute. Doing that, at least in Cowher's mind, would take away from what training camp is supposed to accomplish.
"I'm more of an old-school guy," Cowher said. "I think it's a necessity. It's a necessity for them [the players] to understand what you want, it's a necessity for you to get a feel for who you have.
"If you eliminate a lot of distractions and bring them closer, the better sense you're going to have of evaluating and making decisions," Cowher said.
Slow starts
Despite Cowher's reluctance to change his routine, the Steelers have made a habit of playing poorly once camp breaks, losing their last three season openers and seven of 11 under Cowher. They also have been below .500 after five games in three of the last four seasons.
Still, that's not enough to persuade Cowher to change how the Steelers prepare for the season.
"I don't feel like we've been unprepared," Cowher said. "I don't feel the way we have held training camp has affected the way we played in the opening game. If I did, I would alter it."
Of course, even if Cowher wanted to hold camp at the Steelers' 3-year-old practice facility in Pittsburgh, he probably wouldn't say so.
The Rooney family, which owns the Steelers, has made numerous financial contributions to St. Vincent over the years and is helping the school start a Division III football program.
Also, Cowher learned his lesson about tinkering with the Steelers' tradition when he once tried to move the team's bench from the shady side of Three Rivers Stadium to the sunny side.
"I almost got fired because of it," he said. "So you think I'm going to move from St. Vincent College?" Cowher said. "I'm not going to touch that one."