Camped Out?

We'd waited all summer to see them. Finally, Dad has some time off to take my brother and me to see the Buffalo Bills at training camp.

It was August, 1972, the final days of camp that summer at Niagara University.

We thought we had arrived in time, but as fate would have it, Lou Saban had broken the last workout early. The field was empty, except for a few players straggling back to the locker room.

My father got us out of the car and led us to the door of the locker room (you could get that close then) so we could catch up with the one guy we'd come to see.

O.J. Simpson chatted with Dad. He signed our autographs. Shook my hand. It was one minute. But it made my summer.

The picture above is not mine, but it seemed like it. It's Simpson at the '72 camp. It looks like "our minute." Same white sky and snow fence. Simpson carrying his helmet in hand with muttonchops and mussed hair.)

It's in contrast to what has been Bills training camp at St. John Fisher College the past nine years. The team returns today for a new season and there is a difference.

When Ralph Wilson followed the advice of his then-new marketing director (now COO) and Fisher alum Russ Brandon, he did more than expand his fan base. He moved training camp into the 21st century, complete with a family experience that made a visit to Fisher with the kids like a day spent at Sea Breeze Amusement Park.

http://www.buffalobills.com/blog/index.jsp?blogger_id=1

Crowds swelled. Night practices became the summer version of Monday Night Football.

But over the last two years, while those night sessions continue to draw big, the day-to-day has become much more routine. Crowds appear to be at least a third smaller than they were. Diehards still come because it is a pleasant experience, but as with most things, the public gets used to it.

Is there more the team can do to jazz it up? This is training camp.

Even though the newness has worn off, it would be hard to say Bills fans, whether from the Rochester area or from across the region are camped out. The team just sold 54,000 season tickets, more than any year since the Super Bowl seasons. All for a team that hasn't made the playoffs since arriving at Fisher.

Still, whether the lines at the fence after practice are five or ten deep, or the bleachers are holding just a scattered few, there will always be an opportunity to share camp moments. Like the one my brother, father and I shared 36 summers ago.