had to think hard when someone asked him what he'd miss about training camp at Lehigh University.
The
starting quarterback might be one of the few Birds to miss anything about Lehigh.
Rookie safety
smiled when asked about the end of camp.
Middle linebacker
employed a diplomatic silence when asked the same question as Kolb.
, meanwhile, showed why All-Pro defensive end, not ambassador, is his job title.
It's not a secret the players often detest training camp. They hate being away from home, stuck in dorm rooms, in someone else's facilities and lockers.
It's hard to blame them. There is absolutely nothing, physically, that the team can do at Lehigh that it can't do at the NovaCare Center in South Philadelphia. Seventeen of the 32 NFL teams train either in their own facilities or at another site in their hometown.
So why not shift everything to NovaCare, save some money and make the players — and, one suspects, 95 percent of the organization's staff — happy?
Two reasons come to mind.
One, head coach Andy Reid likes the camaraderie-building aspect of being a team together at an away site.
And second, the fans.
At a site like Lehigh, the Eagles interact directly with fans in a way that is very rare in American professional sports. At the close of Tuesday's morning session the players walked the rope line that separates them from the fans and shook hands to say thank you to the spectators for their support over the last three weeks. Good luck getting any other pro team in town to do that.
The Eagles sign autographs almost every day of camp in a tent, and many Eagles take time after practices to greet fans and sign more autographs. Rookies such as
and
make it a point to spend extra time with fans.
On Tuesday afternoon Hall sprinted across two fields after an interview to sign and shake hands with about 50 diehards who had waited around. On the hottest of days, after the most grueling workouts Reid could devise, there were always players working the crowd.
And there's the simple matter of proximity. Stand along the rope line at Field No. 1 and Kolb, Cole and the rest are a few yards away. That's an exceedingly rare happening for a fan, usually held hundreds of feet distant from their heroes.
Oh, and it's all free.
It's easy to be cynical about the arch-corporate NFL, the No Fun League, its commercialization, its seat licenses, its ripoff concessions, its ruthless way of treating players teams no longer want.
All of that notwithstanding, there's no other event in professional sports where the players are so accessible and open and close to their publics. Baseball spring training might come close in some ways, but there's no autograph tent in Clearwater, Fla., for the Phillies.
Also, the average Eagles fan can come to Lehigh, pack a lunch, stay all day, and be out of pocket for nothing but a hoagie and a few bucks of gas. Visiting the Phillies' camp starts with getting to Florida; Lehigh's a mite closer and cheaper to reach.
Most of the players do genuinely enjoy the fans. They will respond to their cheers and show off a bit for the crowds.
That may be about the only nice aspect of training camp from Cole's point of view.
But it's enough of one to keep the Birds nesting at Lehigh every summer. For once, it’s a place and time where the fans come out ahead.
Oh, and the scenery IS pretty, too, isn't it?