Ol' Ricky's Redskins Tales: Training Camp Torment

Training camp for the Washington Redskins and the NFL is approaching. At one point, going to camp used to be brutal. For many reasons.

Now every training camp has tales of torment. Mostly, they don’t involve too much physical pain. You’ve seen the tamer ones on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” where players are made to sing or somehow entertain veterans during training camp. Maybe veterans would “penny” a rookie’s dorm door so it wouldn’t open. Make them dress silly, steal their bike used to ride to the practice field during Carlisle days or dunk rooks in an ice tub. Buckets of water just seemed to fall from the sky when coming through a door.

But veterans especially loved tormenting high draft picks who held out while the team was sweating through training camp. When LaVar Arrington reported six days late in 2000, several assistant coaches approached the toughest man on the team – tight end James Jenkins – to push the second overall pick hard in the opening practice. Forget love taps on team drills. Go nail him. Push him. Insult him. Do whatever to get under his skin and set off a fight.

Sure enough, LaVar was blindsided by the treatment. He was just trying to get through his first day as a pro and here’s this guy making his life miserable. It finally resulted in a brief skirmish as coaches chuckled from the side.

When Heath Shuler reported 16 days late in 1994, teammates were more than ready for the first rounder. He was taped to the goalpost after practice and left to rot. The rule was anyone cutting him loose would get worse treatment so Shuler hung out for a while until the equipment staffer finally arrived when everyone was gone to cut the passer loose. By the way, removing that white tape will tear some hair off your hide.

Mark Hartsell was a fourth-string quarterback in 1996 who ended up playing in NFL Europe for two seasons. This poor guy didn’t report late or insult a veteran. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time coming out of the locker room at Frostburg. Hartsell was taped to a hand cart, which was connected to the end of a golf cart and driven around campus where one bump would have caused some pain. Finally, Hartsell and the hand cart were taped to a tree to watch the team eat a picnic dinner.

Oh well, boys will be boys.

Tomorrow, Ol’ Ricky remembers late Redskins owner George Preston Marshall. Lots of stories in my book and these are the types of tales I’ll tell on my future “Pizza and Pigskins Tours.”

Rick Snider is an award-winning sports writer who has covered Washington sports since 1978. He first wrote about the Redskins in 1983 before becoming a beat writer in 1993. Snider currently writes for several national and international publications and is a Washington tour guide. Follow Rick on Twitter at @Snide_Remarks.