I can’t believe it but my senior football season is finally here. It seems like just yesterday that I was a young naïve freshman going into my first college football camp. Now here I am, staring down the last week of football camp ever. I am tremendously excited for the upcoming year and I can’t wait until the regular season starts (and camp is over). Now I am sitting here with my small amount of free time between practice and meetings reflecting on the senior trip that myself and 15 other seniors took last week.

 Our epic journey started in the great metropolis that is Zionsville (the town that Bryan Watson built). We all split into different vehicles (I had the pleasure of riding with Nasty Nate Kring) and drove to the land of Bob Campbell’s ancestors… West Virginia. We arrived at our campsite, set up our tents and tried to sit around the camp fire (it was not much of a fire because Dan Eddelman not only sucks at starting fires but also at accepting constructive criticism).  We woke up early the next day and prepared for our day of whitewater rafting. On our way to the river we had the pleasure of getting a tour of the self proclaimed best small town in America, Fayetteville, from one of our river guides. Once arriving at the river we split into two boats. I was part of the more experienced and all around better team: Twerk Team. The rest of the day was filled with white water rafting and river surfing. During one segment of the day every person fell in the water… Except for Tipton Legend Nate Kring, who at the first sign of trouble hid in the middle of the boat.

After our day on the river we went back to the campsite and got ready for dinner. Some of us decided to eat at Dirty Ernie’s Rib Pit, while others feasted on Bob’s vegetable soup. The rest of the night was not without drama. Jacob Grow and myself were briefly lost at the local Walmart, but Watson and Fern soon found us after the amber alert went out.

 We finished the night making s’mores around the fire (I am currently ranked 4th in the world in marshmallow toasting) and talking about the upcoming season and what it means to each of us as seniors. We solidified what our theme (Stop Pretending Start Contending) means to each one of us, and how we are going to communicate our feelings to the rest of the team. The next day we packed up our tents and made our way back to the Mecca of the Midwest: Zionsville. The end of the trip was highlighted by a smoke bomb in the wheel well of Bob’s truck causing Bob to think that his car was on fire.

 - Skip Tokar

Posted by Eugene Will at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Football camp this year has been awesome! I was so pumped to come back and see our guys. One of our program's goals is "FAMILY" and reporting day was sweet because we all had a blast going crazy while welcoming our new freshman teammates to our Wabash football family. I am pumped to begin the season this year because we have a bunch of guys who love to play football and have a passion for the game. It’s special being around guys who love the game and know how to have fun while playing it. We have been flying around on the field and enjoying practicing with each other. Our coaching staff and our players have done an awesome job at challenging themselves and each other every opportunity they have to improve and become better players and coaches. I feel like our players are more confident with the schemes and the philosophies that our coaching staff instilled when they first arrived at Wabash. Our guys have been competing against each other on and off the field throughout camp which has helped us improve and grow as a squad. We have also done some team building activities that both players and coaches participated in and they have been great opportunities to grow as a football family. Camp has been a blast and I’m so excited to start the season with this great group of players and coaches here at Wabash College. Wabash Always Fights!

-DJ Singlfield

Posted by Eugene Will at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So here we are, first day of practice, and I’m sitting here in the middle of a small break wondering where my summer went.  Not that I’m complaining; after all, it’s my senior year and I’m ready to go, as are the rest of the guys on our team, especially my fellow seniors.  Last week, I, along with 15 of my senior teammates traveled to West Virginia for our senior trip to go whitewater rafting and camping.  It was an awesome experience.  I’m far from a country boy, so the whole “let’s go to West Virginia and camp in the wilderness” thing wasn’t necessarily up my alley, but when it was all said and done, we had an awesome time, and there were no incidents a la Deliverance.  Highlights of the trip included Denver Wade losing his sunglasses out my van’s window on the way down (according to Mr. Wade, $160 sunglasses, no less), Dan Eddelman trying to start a fire while others criticized, and me knocking our boat’s guide out of the boat (according to him, “For the first time all season.”; I was proud of this).   

For the years that I’ve been at Wabash, it has always been a tradition for the seniors to go on a trip the week prior to the season starting.  They’ve climbed mountains and jumped out of airplanes, among other things, and it has always seemed to be a great experience for the men who went.  It gives us an opportunity to talk about the upcoming season, and really bond with the guys that you came in with.  After all, my class started with about 60 guys, were down to around 35 after one year, and now we sit with 20 after inheriting 2 from last year’s class (a great thing, because they’re both studs).  So since we’ve all been through football together for the last 3 years, we all have great relationships, and I think it shows, both on and off the field.  

            Our first practice today went well, and I only expect things to improve as we keep moving along.  My own personal blog will be updated here before too long, so look out for that.  In the meantime, I’ll try to gather up some entertaining summer stories.  I’m out. 

-Matt Hudson

Posted by Eugene Will at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)