University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Two-a-day Tales
August 6, 2008 | Football, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Aug. 6, 2008
By Adam Lucas
As the Tar Heels are well aware, it's hard to escape the inevitable descriptions on a football field.
Garrett Reynolds can't just be an offensive lineman. He's always a "hulking offensive lineman" or a "burly offensive lineman." It's unlikely that Cam Thomas has ever seen his name in print without some variation of the word "beefy," and Brandon Tate has been described as "speedy" ever since he made a habit of hauling back punt returns for touchdowns in his very first UNC training camp.
But players also know that there's one very common football descriptor that is a misnomer. Across the football universe, the month of August means training camp, hot weather...and two-a-day practices.
No, wait. Not just two-a-day practices. They are almost always described as "dreaded two-a-day practices." As in, the players dread them. Makes sense, right? If the temperature is climbing past 95 degrees, it only seems logical to fear double exposure to the heat and humidity.
Two-a-days begin today in Chapel Hill, but it turns out that they're not so dreaded after all. Might it be possible that the players even...enjoy them?
"Two-a-days are great," says Reynolds (sorry, the hulking Reynolds).
"Two-a-days are our favorite," echoes E.J. Wilson.
"There are all kinds of good things about two-a-days," says Hakeem Nicks.
Huh? Four hours in the sun rather than two hours in the sun? Twice the opportunities for a coach to rip into them?
But if players are on the practice field, that means they're not in the meeting room. And for a major college football player, those marathon film sessions that are a daily feature of training camp can be a challenge.
"Those meetings will get you," Reynolds says. "You're sitting there for two and three hours at a time, and your eyes can start to get a little heavy."
On Tuesday, Butch Davis described Reynolds as a throwback, as a player who would be at home practicing with Bear Bryant and the legendary Junction Boys. Those Bryant-coached teams were movie- and book-worthy because of the toughness they showed during excruciatingly difficult training camps in the mid-1950s.
In some ways, that's still the image of college football training camps. However, Studebakers aren't prowling the streets and training camps have changed significantly since 1950, too. In 2003, the NCAA passed a rule forbidding teams from practicing twice a day on consecutive days. That same legislation also introduced the acclimation period, which requires teams to ease into training camp with a five-day period that gradually introduces pads and eliminates two-a-days during the early days of camp.
There was much gnashing of teeth in the college coaching fraternity when the rules were introduced five years ago, so you'd expect Davis, a grizzled coaching veteran, to lament the lost opportunities to watch two practices a day whenever he wants.
Instead, he says this: "Football coaches have gotten significantly smarter over the last 15 or 20 years. At no time since I've been coaching at Miami, Dallas, or Cleveland did we ever practice the way people practiced in the 1960s.
"Also, the numbers are not as big as several years ago. When we had 105 kids on scholarship, two or three minor injuries during training camp had no impact on a football team. Now, we have a much better chance of being successful if we get to opening day as healthy as possible."
Two-a-days might soon become a relic of football's past, like the veer or one-platoon football. If that's the case, players will miss them. The double sessions definitely have health issues, but they're also valuable teaching tools.
"The good thing about two-a-days is that you don't have to wait until the next day to fix your mistakes," says senior linebacker Chase Rice. "When I make a mistake, I'm antsy to get back on the field and correct it. When you're going twice a day, you're able to see your mistakes from the morning and get right back out there and do it the right way."
The Tar Heels will have their first crack at same-day solutions today. It will also be another teaching moment for the veterans, who may have to explain the finer points of energy conservation to a still-young team.
The NCAA mandates a rest period between double practices. Early in camp, some of the younger players have been known to take that opportunity to play video games. By the end of camp, however, everyone is in search of the same thing--"You start looking for those rooms with no windows so you can get a quick nap," says Reynolds.
"We know two-a-days will be tough physically," says senior Mark Paschal. "But meeting rooms can't substitute for having the helmet and shoulder pads on. To be honest, I wish we had more of them."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
