Fresno State Athletics
Through a Bulldog's Eyes
12/16/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 16, 2009
ALBUQUERQUE - First and foremost, I am glad to be bowl eligible in my senior year. It's been an up and down rollercoaster in my five years here at Fresno State and I'm thinking we should end it off on a good note (aka a win).
My teammates and I woke up this morning about 5:30 to eat breakfast and load the buses. Upon our departure from the football parking lot, guess who rolls up in their brand new Dodge Charger? Damion Owens!! What a suprise that Mr. Lockdown Boy himself was able to miss his alarm clock and nearly miss the bus, hopefully he doesn't miss any of the Wyoming recievers running down field on Saturday.
We arrived in Albuquerque, N.M., today to see a Mariachi band playing on the landing strip, which I thought was pretty cool until they saw Wyoming's plane land and ran over to them, leaving us hanging. As they ran off, it hit me that the Chili Cookoff Dinner was coming up and I started to get nervous because the video we made is going to be shown to nearly 300 people. The video that makes me look like a fool, eating handfuls of diced onions.
We got to the hotel, found out that the beds are super comfortable, the burgers and fries, (my favorite*) were amazing, but I was still nervous about this video being shown tonight. I hoped that practice would get the video off my mind.
Speaking of practice, once we got onto the campus of New Mexico and headed toward the locker room, I asked Ryan Coulburn, "Isn't our locker room back there?" All he said was, "We are the visiting team this year, so we are in the visitor's locker room." Usually when we travel, the size of the locker room is one of the things on my mind. This time, my last trip, I was looking forward to a Rose Bowl-type setting, with fountains of Gatorade, chocolate covered strawberries, donuts and pecan pie (I mean its my last trip, I can dream if I want to, right?). So I walked in the locker room only to find 100 stools right next to eachother in a circle and closed skinny lockers that maybe only A.J .Jefferson can fit in. It broke my heart. We were like stuffed pigs trying to get in football pads.
Anyway, practice was hectic. The altitude nearly led to my early demise. Just think, 22-year-old Fresno State fullback Reynard Camp runs out of oxygen while running routes at practice. Seeing that on the headlines of the Fresno Bee and gobulldogs.com would be rather funny. I nearly passed out on three different occasions becuase Coach Baxter thought it would be a good idea to leave me in a drill the ENTIRE TIME. So then we did some routes and team drills. I'm pretty sure this led to me losing about 20 lbs. today at practice.
So the grand finale of the night, the Chili Cookoff Dinner. I was sweating bullets while the guy at the El Pinto announced our names for cooking. But, thanks to great editing, me woofing down handfuls of chopped onions is not on the film (THANK YOU SO MUCH!). After the video, a skit was performed by some Wyoming guy who thought it would be funny to call us puppies and to fetch a bone, only he has no clue.
All in all, our first night here has been interesting to say the least. Hopefully it gets better and ends with a 'Dogs victory on Saturday!
#48 Reynard Camp
