Sports

Column: The Life of a Footballer

By Mike Brusko

Posted on Sept. 10, 2009, at 1:13 a.m.

If you’re reading this column, I’m going to go ahead and assume you know football season has begun around the country. Just about every collegiate team has played their first game and the NFL season is set to kickoff this Sunday. For true sports fans,
this is one of the most exciting times of the year.

For those of you who don’t know, I am in my fifth year as a member of the University of Maine football team. That’s why I felt this was an appropriate time to give the average person a little sense of what it’s actually like to play football at this level.

For starters, the concept of an “offseason” is simply forgotten when it comes to Division I football. The closest thing that we have is the three weeks’ vacation over Christmas when we get to go back to our hometowns, most of which are outside of New England. When the season ends — usually at the end of November— we get about two weeks when we don’t have any form of practice or workout. After that, we jump right back into our “offseason” workout program that includes any combination of heavy weightlifting and cardiovascular exercise five days a week. Did I mention we have to have these workouts at 6 a.m. every day to ensure they don’t conflict with anybody’s class schedule? This goes on for about three months until we start spring practice at the beginning of April. Throughout these three months, we are constantly organizing individual skill improvement
sessions, such as quarterbacks throwing routes to receivers or defensive linemen working their pass rush moves against their equally large counterparts in the offensive linemen.

Once spring practice starts, we get a break from the fiveday-a-week wakeups at 5:30 a.m., because that’s what time we have to be on the field ready to start practice. For those of us living off campus, that means waking up no later than 4:45 a.m. in order to drive to campus, get into the training room and get dressed in time. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

After spring practice comes the summer workouts. Technically, we are permitted to spend the summer months at home (most of us choose to stay up here and work out as a team), but even if you do that, there is a strict workout regimen you are expected to follow for four to five days a week. If you do choose to work out up here, you will be waking up at 5:30 a.m. again for most of the summer so there are no conflicts with summer classes or work schedules.

When August arrives, a college football player’s summer is over, and it’s time to report to camp. Camp is basically the equivalent of being on courtappointed house arrest with one exception: We don’t get to live in our homes. It is three weeks of living in a dorm room without access to any form of transportation and being occupied everyday from 6:30 a.m. until about 9:30 p.m. No, my friends, we do not get Sundays off. Every day is essentially the same as the day before.
Finally, after waking up around 5:30 a.m. for essentially the entire year to workout in one form or another, we reach the season.

All of the hardships and frustrations of the “offseason” disappear from your mind when the season starts. Game day is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced if you haven’t been a part of it. It is the most emotional and absorbing game on the planet and it makes everything you went through for the past nine months completely worth it.

Every Saturday for about three months, we get to walk onto the field with our best friends in the entire world — our second family — and play the game we love to play. In those moments, you feel like you would do anything for the guy standing next to you. It is a bond that can’t be replicated and its value is immeasurable. There are so many more lessons and relationships to take away from the experience than the wins and losses. As difficult as the workouts and the wakeups may seem at times, this opportunity is the biggest blessing anyone could ever ask for.