It’s been a long couple of days with a lot of information being thrown at us, but it’s been a great experience.
We got here on Saturday night and had the night to ourselves but we didn’t do much. We just relaxed and got our minds right for the week. I’m rooming with 
The wakeup call came early Sunday morning. We were up at 6:30 getting ready, and it felt like 3:30 because our bodies were still on West Coast Time. We started the day with an early breakfast and then headed straight to the auditorium for meetings.
We go from one meeting to the next and it’s a lot of information to consume. Meetings start at 8 a.m. and end around 9 p.m. We take a 45 minute lunch break and have one two-hour break in the afternoon. The days are spent listening to a lot of different people letting us know what to expect and what life brings your way once you become an NFL player.
Arthur Hightower, the Chargers Player Development Director, has been meeting with the rookies since we arrived in San Diego a few weeks ago so this week is kind of a refresher course on a lot of the things we’ve already been talking about. It’s still a very positive experience getting to listen to a lot of different speakers.
It feels like we’ve covered every topic in the book. We’ve heard about everything from how the NFL Players Association functions to the dangers of drug abuse. We’ve sat through sessions on domestic violence, financial advising, dealing with the media and learning to say no to the people who reappear in your life when they find out you just became an NFL player.
There are a lot of current and former players that come to the symposium to share their experiences. I can’t even remember all the names, but guys like Kevin Mawae, Jerome Bettis, Chris Long, Eddie Royal, Mike Tomlin, Cris Carter and NFL PA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith have spoken to us. Yesterday a couple former Chargers, Marcellus Wiley and Akbar Gbaja Biamila, spoke about their experiences with guns. They talked about how having a gun has never helped anyone they’ve known. As a player sitting in the audience, you take it for what it’s worth. These are guys who have walked in your shoes.
There’s been a lot of role playing. There are actors that put themselves in situations we might encounter. Hopefully we won’t have to encounter many of them, but reality is that there are guys in that room that will be in some of those situations. It provides you with an opportunity to think critically about how you’d act in those circumstances.
Today we’re going to a football clinic for some local high school kids. We’re going to spend the morning coaching those guys and giving them insights on football and life. Then in the afternoon we’re back to our normal routine. The clinic will be a nice break, but more than that it’ll be a good opportunity to help some kids. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for youth football programs, so it’s always a great opportunity to encourage a young guy. You hope that you might even give them some information that could help them on or off the field.
We head back to San Diego tomorrow but there’s still a lot of information to soak up. I feel blessed to be here. It’s just another moment where I’ve realized how fortunate I am to be on the verge of my first NFL training camp.
