New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma's camp diary

Aug/03/08 09:58 PM Filed in: Jonathan Vilma
JonathanVilma
I don't think a lot of the fans really understand how time consuming camp is. They come out and see us for two practices a day, which we really enjoy, because it makes practice go by faster having them out there. But when they're not seeing us, we're in meetings or lifting weights or eating lunch or going to meetings again. We're basically going from about 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. straight through.

Mainly, the alarm clock is in charge of getting you up, but as the days go on, you start to hear the familiar sounds, doors opening and closing from the other dorm rooms, scooters starting to turn on, all the sounds of camp life. I'm actually a morning person, so I don't mind getting up at 6 a.m. and putting in the work, just as long as I can squeeze in a nap every day. I do love my naps. They're vital whenever you can squeeze them in. It's like a recharge for your body when you can just shut down and relax for a few minutes.

Fortunately, Coach (Sean) Payton has done a real good job of squeezing some free time into the schedule, usually around noontime. It's up to you how you want to use that. Watch TV, make phone calls. I go with the nap. I think Coach Payton has done a great job of getting the work that he wants out of us, while still giving us time for our bodies to recover. I think he understands that we have a lot of guys that come here in shape, ready to go. There would be no sense in overworking us. We work hard, though, and it's been good work, and we're excited about it.

I'm always making time to study my playbook, too, since this is my first year here. The playbook is something you'll never get in one stop. You have to keep studying it, keep reviewing it. I make sure to do that at night before bed, and maybe a little in the morning, just to make sure I understand what's going on. Coaches want to see the progress, and they don't want to have to slow down progress to explain what's going on. Bedtime is usually around 11 or 12. Some guys can handle four hours of sleep. Some guys need the full eight hours.

About half the guys have a TV in the room, half the guys don't. If you have one, you're lucky. But we have the rookies to entertain ourselves. That always makes it exciting. We always get a nice song out of them in the cafeteria, and Saturday night we had the rookie show, which is always a highlight of camp. They put on some performances for us, some singing, some making fun of the other guys on the team and the coaches. We're grooming them and breaking them in, but it's also a way to bond with them. I usually like to just sit back and let the other vets lead that. Personally, I was fortunate in my rookie year not to get it too bad, so I try not to haggle the rookies too much.

(blog.nola.com)