What does camping in the Pecatonica Wetlands have to do with football? Find out.
Camping in the Pecatonica Wetlands with 38 football players. Waking at midnight to do Navy Seal training, doing flutter kicks in the pond before going on a two-mile hike in the dark (no flashlights allowed). Carrying a painted log through the woods for two hours. Running a grueling obstacle course that leaves players collapsed to the ground with chests heaving at the end.
Who could miss that?
Not Bobby Pottinger.
Pottinger, a former Boylan player, has never been a participant in Rockford Lutheran’s annual football retreat. But his dad, Lutheran’s offensive coordinator, has been there from the start in 2011. And his son, who now works in Florida, took a week of vacation so he could return to Rockford and help out at the annual retreat Tuesday through Thursday morning.
“I love the tradition and seeing these kids grow as leaders and how it shapes them throughout the season,” Pottinger said Wednesday, between making runs on his ATV to fetch bottled water for the players on their winding two-hour hike through the woods. “I wish i had taken part in it. It brings the whole team a lot more together and creates a bond like you would never have imagined.”
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Former coach Bruce Bazsali started the tradition in 2011. He inherited a team that was 6-48 the previous five years and then went 50-9 after starting the Camp Courage tradition — and putting future NFL star James Robinson, the state’s all-time leading rusher, in the lineup as a freshman.
Bazsali took the camp tradition to Guilford when he coached there for two seasons, but one of his assistants — Jeff Luedke — then brought it back to Lutheran, where he is now the head coach.
Luedke said the tradition is even more important at a private school like Lutheran, which draws kids from all over.
“These kids did not come from the same school district,” Luedke said. “Some were home-schooled. For them to come together and get to know each other as a person, rather than a football player, that’s what I like about it the best. They learn more about each other. They learn more about us. They establish camaraderie.”
You can hear that camaraderie echo through the woods as the leaders start the “Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are” chant/song every few minutes.
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This is one of the three main traditions of the camp, along with the obstacle run and the Navy Seal training. A white log used to be painted with 10 squares, separated by a line of Lutheran Crusader purple. The first nine squares are for Lutheran’s opponents, in order. They march through the woods, carrying the painted log in an unbroken chain — if even one person takes their hand off a teammate’s shoulder, they have to start over from the beginning — until they spy a tree or bush or plant with a paint splash of that opponent’s colors. They then stop and paint it. If they win that game during the season, they will paint over that square with Lutheran purple.
The 10th square was for the playoffs.
This year, there are 13 squares — even though a state title game would need a 14th square.
“Our ace guy who painted it is not a math major,” Luedke said ruefully.
Luedke also recites a short poem about that week’s opponent, before three players take turns spray painting the square. At the first stop, Luedke’s poem is about how Winnebago has a star running back, but Lutheran beat them last year and how one player will never beat the Crusaders.
“I think Coach is pretty good,” junior safety/slot receiver John Behmer said. “He could be a rapper, even.”
Keeping connected while carrying that log, fording streams and climbing hills is harder than it looks.
“It’s a real challenge and shows how long and how hard we have to work,” junior receiver/defensive back David Ballard said. “It’s a real challenge for everyone, not just us, the coaches and everyone who has to cooperate. It takes a lot of cooperation and communication.”
The players — who are banned from using their cell phones — cooperate and communicate for three days. Even when it’s just having a pig roast Wednesday night. They are together. And bonding.
Even when it’s time to go back to their city of tents tucked back by the woods.
“It’s loud. Fun. Obnoxious. A combination of everything,” sophomore running back Gavin Sanders said of their tent community.
What it is mostly is a team.
“Something unpredictable happens every year,” offensive coordinator RC Pottinger said. “A kid steps up thought you wouldn’t have thought was going to. Our fastest kid in the obstacle course is never the one we would predict.”
“Camp Courage,” Luedke said, “is all about teamwork.”
Contact: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com, @matttrowbridge or 815-987-1383. Matt Trowbridge has covered sports for the Rockford Register Star for over 30 years, after previous stints in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and Iowa City.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Rockford football team bonds over yearly camping adventure
