Back to Greeley?

With the talk out of Dove Valley about getting back to the Bronco Way and recapturing the team's culture of winning, I was wondering if any of you thought it might be a good idea for the Broncos to returning to a more traditional training camp?

I know the players used to complain endlessly about it, and having picked up a BA in Sociology at UNC I know Greeley ain't the most exciting place in the world. At the same time, it sure seemed like we had better teams with better chemistry when we were doing a get away training camp.

So why should we do it? What distinguishes a get away training camp from a camp held at the team's facilities?

Well, the first thing I think of from a sociological point of view is that it creates an opportunity for bonding the team. When you take people and put them in a unique and challenging situation, the general human response is to come together as a group to make the experience more manageable. In the process you learn the personalities of the others in the group. You gain insight about them as people, not just football players. In the long run, the empathy that comes from that can lead to much better communication and more efficient play. Do I think that if Tim Tebow knows Eric Decker as an individual that they will play better together? Yes, I do.

A second aspect of a get away training camp is it allows the organization a period of time where all the players, all the coaches, and all the rest of the staff must live the Bronco Way. For two or three weeks they are Broncos only. They are not day employees who transform back into husband and father when they get home that evening. They are only Broncos because they are living as Broncos. If done properly, this environment creates a sort of intersubjective glue amongst the team. Veterans renew their understanding of what it means to be part of this group. Young players learn from the veterans and coaches what it means to be part of the group. The team has a chance to show its loyalty to the players and the players have a chance to feel loyalty to the team. What is good team chemistry anyway? It's a bunch of guys with a shared goal and a shared method coming together to create in reality the outcome they envision.

Think of training camp in football as a watered down version of military boot camp. What do they do at Parris Island? The make marines. The way they make marines is to remove young men from society, take away their distinguishing characteristics (what do you think that haircut is about anyway?), put them through an immensely difficult process that they can only survive by cooperating, and instill in them a philosophy of life. By the end you have a group of people that can work together toward a common goal by reflex. An NFL training camp isn't that intense (though I'm guessing Bear Bryant's college players might have been able to skip boot camp and go straight into the marines), but the principles of the interaction are still applicable and should still have beneficial outcomes for team chemistry and on field efficiency.

A final potential benefit of a traditional training camp is the opportunity to bond with the fans. John Elway and company are talking about openness and it seems to me you could structure an annual bonding experience with the fans around a traditional training camp. And I'm not just thinking about it in terms of access to the players for autographs or the chance to spot players walking around a campus at night. I'm thinking in terms of how fans feel about the Broncos in their lives. I have talked to plenty of folks from all along the Front Range who planned trips to see their team in Greeley. Most of the time those are very happy memories. If you're the Broncos, you can do a lot worse than having happy memories with loved ones be associated with the product that you're peddling. Just sayin'.

Final note. I don't think that training camp necessarily has to be in Greeley. I do think it it needs to be far enough away from Denver to be a true get away but close enough for the fans to get their with a few hours driving time. Greeley would be good because of the sense of tradition but I'm sure it would go well in Ft. Collins, Colorado Springs, or even Cheyenne.

It's the special events in our lives that make us the people we are, and a couple weeks of get away to make a football team sounds like a special event to me.