Lucas: Badgers left home away from home 10 years ago
August 10, 2015 | Mike Lucas
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Aug. 10, 2015
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com
MADISON, Wis. -- Not only does Monday signal the opening of Wisconsin's preseason training camp but it celebrates the 10-year anniversary of The Move.
In 2005, UW athletic director/coach Barry Alvarez moved the training camp from the O'Connor Center/Holy Name Seminary to campus for a number of reasons, mostly tied to cost and convenience.
The Bishop O'Connor Catholic Pastoral Center is situated on Madison's far west side -- sandwiched between South High Point Road and County Highway M -- 6.5 miles from Camp Randall.
The Badgers began training at what was then Holy Name Seminary in 1974. Head coach John Jardine liked the idea of sequestering his team at a remote locale to remove all campus distractions. He also liked practicing on the grass fields to save the legs of his players during two-a-days.
Jardine wasn't about to tinker with success after Wisconsin posted a 7-4 mark in '74 (the only winning record during the late Jardine's tenure). Thus, the Seminary, which later morphed into the O'Connor Center, was the training camp home for the Badgers every year, save one, through 2004.
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| "There was a singleness of purpose. There wasn't anything but football." |
The exception was 1989 when then head coach Don Morton decided to break the routine and ignore the tradition, one of the many questionable calls during his forgettable three-year run. The Badgers practiced on the intramural fields near Nielsen Tennis Stadium.
Logistical headaches ensued because the players were bussed to the fields from Camp Randall Stadium and housed in the Lakeshore Dorms. After migraine headaches developed during a two-win '89 season, the Morton experiment was ditched.
The Badgers returned to Holy Name Seminary upon Alvarez's arrival. At the time, he reasoned that it was a timely and critical investment that could "make a difference in our ability to compete" with other programs in the Big Ten. And he was right; three Rose Bowls under his reign were proof of that.
Alvarez made a business decision in 2005 to relocate the camp to the program's renovated base of operations, Camp Randall Stadium. By then, the NCAA had a whole different view of preseason conditioning and altered practice schedules accordingly with new legislation which also impacted the move.
Former linebacker/nose guard Mike Newkirk was a member of the last UW recruiting class to train at the O'Connor Center and his post-practice sprints up the hills surrounding the main football field has become part of the seminary lore.
Here are a few remembrances from Denny Helwig, the long-time football trainer (now an assistant AD for sports medicine).
From pigs to pigskins: "There used to be pigs in that field across County M and during practice if the wind was right that smell would come right across the road. The flies would migrate over, too, and the guys would be covering up their steaks in order to eat at training table."
Death Valley days: "In the early days, the fields were rough and dry; they weren't watered very often. The players would be running sprints after practice and it was so dry out there that it looked like the wildebeest on the Serengeti."
Catch me if you can: "When we first came out here for training camp, the coaches didn't take the car keys away from the guys. So after bed check, you'd hear the players pushing their cars down the hill to the road, where they would start them up. Sneaking out of there wasn't a problem."
Here was the catch: "Coming back after the place was locked up was a trick. A few times, I'd be in my room and I'd hear pebbles hitting my window because they couldn't find a way in. You'd open the door and it was always, 'I couldn't sleep, so I took a walk and the door shut behind me.' Yeah, right."
It wasn't all that bad: "There was a singleness of purpose. There wasn't anything but football. You'd hear the church bells and you couldn't help but notice how busy it could be at times and spookily quiet at other times between practices. The contrasts were something else."
Truth is, Holy Name Seminary gave birth to Wisconsin's first walk-on player. A defensive back named Von Mansfield, a non-scholarship player in the early '80s, had no idea where the seminary was located and actually walked the six-plus miles from campus to Holy Name.
Walk-ons are still the life-line of this program.
But it's no longer taken quite so literally.
