Coach Tomlin believes “Destination Camps” do provide ingredients for more cohesive team

Published June 26th, 6:03 EDT
by Bo Marchionte

Latrobe, PA – There is something unique about being at St. Vincent College when the Steelers players are arriving on campus. Each individual player has different preferences that will help make their dorm life living corridors the most manage throughout training camp.

There is a collective pulse amongst the players, because despite lavish salaries there is a part of the football DNA that sooths them to the environment Coach Mike Tomlin calls a “destination camp.”

“Very much so,” Tomlin said on the validity of team building at St. Vincent College. “I think that’s one of the tangible benefits of having a destination training camp. Obviously, we let it happen organically but we also T it up. There is an awesome development. Collective development in an environment like this. We get an opportunity to be away from our lives and singularly focused on this collective.”

A slow drop off zone where pretty slick and exotic cars pull up one after the next. The tinted glass makes it impossible to know the player’s identity until they exit their vehicle. Then watching what items are worthy enough to join them for the next four weeks in Latrobe.

One year of experience staying in the dorms at St. Vincent College and players quickly identify what they left behind at home that must be brought the next time they spend weeks in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

“A foot massager,” Kenny Pickett said as the item he made sure to bring after leaving home without it last year as a rookie. “My feet kill me in cleats every day, so I brought that. That was probably the big piece I brought this season.

Players log their suitcases with pillows and blankets tucked underneath their arms. Usually, each player will make several trips from their car to the dorm room. After the bigger items are done the common visual of grocery bags filled with specific treats are in vogue for the final preparation for dorm life.

“Yeah, just bring some snacks,” rookie tight end Darnell Washington said of his responsibility to the position group. “Some mixed nuts and Cheez It.”

Golf carts are zooming past up and down the steep hills of St. Vincent College with players chauffeured to their rooms with the final touches on making life as comfortable as possible over the next four weeks.

Making it feel like home also coincides with being with family. The football X’s and O’s aspect of the game the fundamentals of success, but here at St. Vincent College the players get to experience a deeper sense of bonding.

“I can see how it really brings together,” Kevin Dotson said outside Rooney Hall. “Like the older generations that were here before us. I can see them being together and they didn’t have social media. They didn’t have anything like that to distract them. It definitely would make a team way closer.”

Cohesiveness is one of the hallmarks of staying and each player recognizes it. The question is asked to nearly every player and time after time you can tell they are eager to experience this gem of a venue to kick off another season of football.

“This gets us close,” Dotson said. “But imagine they will have no cell phones, no video games or anything like that. I can really see it bringing a team together. Besides games we are usually in meetings until like 8 or 8:30. So, after that we might hang out for like an hour.”

Hanging out helps fuse the team together. Over laughs and sharing in those special moments that will likely be something they look back on fondly long after their playing careers are over. While dorm life isn’t up to snuff to the confines of their homes, it does serve as a reminder to their collegiate years playing college football.

While it’s work and long days. The setup is special, and the players identify with the lineage of rosters before them. The Steelers have been coming here since 1966 and their mark on the community has run deep. Those last hours of the day Dotson mentioned are enjoyed throughout the dorm rooms on campus.

Alex Highsmith carried out a 43-inch television out of his pickup truck. Pickett wanted a foot massager and Highsmith preferred his TV. The television isn’t to be watched in solitude, it’s a team bonder without anyone even knowing it. Highsmith shared that his room might serve as headquarters for some video game competitions.

“Some of the guys we play NHL and have little competitions going on,” Highsmith jokes. “My room might be where the competitions are going on.”

The competitions aren’t for the faint-of-heart. These are professional athletes, each an individual trained assassin in the art of winning. Grouped together in the tiny confines of their rooms can still manifest themselves into competition at the highest level.

“Everything you can get competitive about is going to get competitive,” Dotson said. “I don’t care if we are playing Uno, it might get into a yelling match. Doesn’t matter if we are playing Pictionary, everybody is trying to win.”

The fiercest of competitors in Dotson’s mind is three-time first team All-Pro defensive end Cam Heyward. The undisputed leader of the team also is determined to win at all costs when the shenanigans of late hour comradery come to life.

“Probably like Cam (Heyward),” Dotson said of the most competitive guys on the roster. “He might even get to the point where he even cheats in the game.”

So, fans will pack the campus in the coming weeks. Watching the Steelers sweat furiously in the immense summer heat. Watching them come together on the field with continuous reps against one another. Practice after practice fine tuning the execution of the playbook.

However, it’s also going to be those off the field moments in Highsmith’s room and with Roku television and padded mattress on top of his dorm bed where he and his teammates will continue the team building through simply spending time together.

“Spend formal and informal time together,” Tomlin said.

“I just think that’s a component of team building because we all been on enough teams we know and respect and feel and pour into. So, yes there will be competition with video games, board games, dominos etc.

I think that is one of things is that if you love football, you will love a football environment. That’s one of the things you like about destination camps.”

Time on the field is like teammates. Time off the field is like friends.