Bear Digest

How Bears training camp at home just isn't like the good old days

Analysis: It wouldn't be the worst thing for the Bears to look around for a nearby school to house their training camps once their stadium issues get resolved.
Gene Chamberlain|
Cole Kmet signs autographs for fans at Halas Hall during the 2024 training camp.
Cole Kmet signs autographs for fans at Halas Hall during the 2024 training camp. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

It was a noble experiment and one plenty of people welcomed or even supported, including this writer.

Bears training camp at Halas Hall began in 2020 after they held it away from their regular practice facility from 1984-2019. They waited a year with one closed camp because of the pandemic, then welcomed the public.

July 25 marks the fifth straight year the Bears open practices up for the public to watch at their beautiful north suburban facility and it's still a good idea. It's just, there's a problem. It's not an unforeseen issue, but exists nonetheless.

They lack sufficient space for fans. It's that simple. There's just enough space to accomodate the fans who would want to come. Those who do get in have less room to maneuver.

The groups are very small compared to the days away from Halas Hall for camp.

From 1984-2001 they held practices in Platteville, Wis.

The idea was the same from 2002-2019 when they had camp in Bourbonnais, IL. They wanted the team away together to bond as a group, but also sought to accommodate fans.

Both of those facilities—University of Wisconsin-Platteville and Olivet Nazarene University—definitely accommodated large groups of fans. There were plenty of practices in Bourbonnais when 8,000-10,000 fans turned out just for the day. They had all the room anyone could need at this facility.

When it was in Platteville, Wis., they had a natural seating area, a wooded hillside leading down to the field that provided great space and relief from the sun.

There also was a huge amount of space for fans to have contact with players leaving the practice field, where they could seek autographs.

It was similar at Olivet Nazarene, except it was all on a flat plain without all the hilly shaded areas.

Halas Hall has some bleachers and they've done an excellent job covering seating for protection from sun, but it's still very limited space and areas near the seats are cramped.

The places fans can hope to come away with an autograph or photo are limited, as a result.

No one could complain about the way they've set up the facility entrance for a fan experience. The parking for fans is away from the facility. They must use shuttle buses and drive vans in from nearby Vernon Hills.  There is no space for fan parking in the Conway Industrial Park.

Players like being close to home, being in their regular facility. And the Bears crew hauling around equipment has to love the fact it's at Halas Hall, with less moving around.

However, because the group of fans they can accept onto the grounds each day is so small, it makes all of it almost seem not worthwhile.

Then there is the bonding issue.

Only eight teams travel from their facilities now. Dallas has long been one of those and actually goes to California for camp. Buffalo and Pittsburgh have continued leaving. Kansas City is possibly the best example of this.

The Chiefs continue to leave their facility for training camp.

Pro Football Network asked Andy Reid why this is their choice. He's a good one to ask when they've made five of the last six Super Bowls.

“Camaraderie,” Reid told them. “Especially in this day and age when people are on phones all day, they have to talk (when away at camp).”

The Bears' focus now is all on the Arlington Heights Stadium project. Maybe once they get this settled, they can take a look around the areas not too far from Halas Hall and find a new place for training camps.

As beloved as Platteville was, it was too far away. Places like Lewis University in Romeoville, NIU, North Central College and Benedictine University are all places within a little more than a stone's throw of Halas Hall that could accommodate larger groups of fans for a training camp.

Either that, or perhaps the Bears find a way to expand their areas around the practice fields with more land, but they still won't solve the parking issue at Halas Hall.

It also seems unlikely they'll come up with more land at great expense for what seems like a less significant purpose.

When players are not away together that bonding experience is lacking. The good times when they were at Bourbonnais or Platteville and went out into the community to bars or restaurants, making contact with fans are situations they can't have while practicing at home. Fans loved running into Bears players or ex-Bears enjoying themselves at Donlin's in Bourbonnais or Platteville's Hoist House.

They won't make up for that aspect of it as long as they're practicing in the summer at home.

It's a situation where road sweet road beats home sweet home—this all coming from someone who doesn't mind admitting they thought it would all work out differently when the return home started.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.