July 2, 2007

Record-setting heat in Oklahoma. Think about that for a second. That's like record-setting speed on the Salt Flats or record-setting decibels for a NASA launch.

It was that stifling heat and a group of dedicated young men that got me to thinking last Thursday. 

A photographer had asked to take a picture of strength and conditioning coach Jerry Schmidt for a local newspaper. I escorted him to the off-season conditioning drills that were taking place on the infield of John Jacobs Track just east of the stadium.

Schmidt and a bevy of athletic trainers armed with water bottles and cold towels looked on as a group of Sooner football players went through the paces. 

The sound of the band and the roar of the crowd seemed a million miles away.

These guys wore weighted vests, did 100 medicine ball sit-ups, ran up hills, lifted weights and did a few other things in preparation for the upcoming season. If the newspaper needed a caption for the photo, it might be this: "So you want to be a big-time football player, do you?"

I work here everyday. Conversations about things like workouts are as natural as breathing. Shame on me and anyone else who forgets the full-time nature of playing on this level.

All of us are guilty at one time or another of seeing athletes as spoiled and pampered. That analogy isn't altogether without some merit, but it is almost always stated with no regard for reality.

Watch someone straight-arm a broom stick over their head while high-stepping backwards over hurdles in 110-degree heat and tell me where the coddling is in that scenario.

Okay, I know it is a privilege to play Division I college sports. Precious few college athletes are later rewarded with big professional dollars, but even those that aren't know adoration of which most of us could only dream.

They know the thrill of putting on that uniform, of having a child seek their autograph and of running onto a playing field to the roar of thousands. But they also know 6 a.m., workouts and that summer afternoon in July. There is a lot more to all of this than meets the eye and that's true in every sport, not just football.

As someone who played, if you want to call it that, very small college basketball, I didn't think there was any way I could appreciate athletes on this level more than I already did. Then I walked out there last Thursday.

It'll be a while before I take them for granted again and it will be a real long while before I can work up the nerve to criticize a mistake they make on the field. 

Glamour is the tip of this iceberg and there isn't enough heat in Oklahoma to melt that big part few of us ever see.

  
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Kenny Mossman, Associate Athletics Director for Communications, provides his perspective on Oklahoma Athletics in his regular column on SoonerSports.com.