One of the more interesting revelations in the recent ESPN the Magazine story about Chris Borland—the former Wisconsin and San Francisco 49ers linebacker who retired after just one season in the NFL due to health concerns—was his admission that, while he loved the adrenaline rush that came along with football, he could not actually say that enjoyed football. Because football, he said, simply is not fun. “It’s intoxicating,” Borland says in the story. “But fun is the wrong word for it. I don’t consider football fun. It’s not like a water park, or a baseball game.” It’s a quote that came to mind as I watched a recent episode of “Scarlet and Gray Days,” the mini-documentary series, currently being aired by the Big Ten Network, that follows the Ohio State Buckeyes as they prepare to defend their national championship. The BTN camera crews were given, it seems, almost unfettered access to Buckeye camp, so viewers get a very real sense not just of the amazing athleticism of this team, or of the cunning, almost cutthroat vision of coach Urban Meyer (he’s rather blunt in telling players that if they don’t pull their weight, they won’t be long for the team), but also a harsh reminder of just how not fun football can be—especially during training camp. [embedded content] As the show progresses, we see the Buckeyes systematically beaten down—physically, mentally—by Meyer and the coaching staff. We see players so exhausted after a day’s worth of practice that they can’t manage to stay awake even for the 10-minute bus ride back to the team hotel. We see players vomiting. We see players struggling just to walk—and that’s after just a couple days of camp. Training camp, we learn, is just one long, arduous, miserable grind. …
Continue Reading: For Ohio State, Things Only Get Tougher from Here
