Reusse: Give me back those Vikings training camps in Mankato, where rules didn’t apply and limits weren’t set

The Minnesota Star Tribune in Monday’s print edition and other outlets have a list of the rules that must be followed for those planning to attend a Vikings public practice during what is the current version of “training camp” at the team’s complex in Eagan.

Best I can tell, the first full session for players will be Wednesday, but the public can’t get in until Saturday, the first of 12 open practices before camp concludes Aug. 14.

Admission? Tickets must be reserved at vikings.com/camp. Parking? Ten bucks if you register online, $20 if you pay on-site.

Most important: Autographs? Nine position groups, one of those per day, with the first 1,000 youth (17 and under) receiving a colored wristband to determine which player’s line to get into — unless the folks win an auction for a “golden wristband,” allowing the kid to choose his or her line.

Also, remember this, you pint-sized Vikings-lovers … no standing next to the player in the autograph zone to get a smiley photo.

Here’s what you won’t see: An older fellow in need of a haircut, parking his old RV between the players’ lodging area and the practice fields, and apparently sleeping in it for a couple of weeks out of his love for the Vikings.

That was when training camp was really a “camp” in Mankato — for 52 summers, from Norm Van Brocklin’s last season in 1966 through Mike Zimmer’s fourth in 2017 — and surrounded by chaotic fandom.

TCO Performance Center … not my cup of Diet Coke.

I miss those days at Winter Park, where you would sidle up near a locker, ask a couple of questions and someone would holler, “Don’t talk to that [individual].” I miss the days when the Star Tribune still had drawing-type column logos, and John Randle had the ones for Dan Barreiro and me Scotch-taped to the side of a locker.

Which gave me a chance to say to Randle, “It’s not that tough to know which one you’re mad at, Big John. I outweigh him by 100.”

I miss being at the much smaller Eden Prairie site, and we’re all crowded — including the TV reporters with camera operators — into the makeshift interview room, waiting for Daunte Culpepper’s weekly quarterback session.

It’s the first chance to interview Culpepper after the “Love Boat” news has exploded. Following tradition, veteran radio interviewer Gene Harrington gets the first question, and it’s: “Daunte, what do you want to talk about? The Bears or the Boat?”

Less was more for many reporters before Zygiville rose from the former Northwest/Delta Air Lines property in Eagan, and that was particularly true with the Mankato version of training camp.

Van Brocklin loved those five years of hard-nosed training camp in the Bemidji woods, but General Manager Jim Finks and others wanted a place more convenient to the Twin Cities.

Mankato had Bemidji beat by more than two hours as a commute.

A forgotten fact for most of us: The first training camp in Mankato lasted from July 12 to Aug. 31. There were five exhibition games then, the regulars played, and they didn’t start practicing in the Twin Cities until the week of the season opener.

In addition to Van Brocklin’s love of an arduous training camp, a big reason for this was that Metropolitan Stadium was occupied by the Twins through September — so the Vikings had to move into the original Midway Stadium in St. Paul to practice for a few weeks.

Plus, if you were in a group that stuck around saloons until 9 p.m. or so, you might have a chance to buy a drink for an actual Viking.

Judd Zulgad, now a radio star, was on the Vikings beat for several years with the Star Tribune. “I loved Mankato,” he said this week. “It was the best time of year. I got more news tips in Boomtown at 10:30 at night than I did interviewing players after practice.”

And where are you going to get more details on what led to first-round draft choice Demetrius Underwood hitchhiking out of town after his first morning practice — in a locker room with eavesdroppers or buying a teammate a beer hours later?

For years, there was also the convenience of the press workroom being in a makeshift area on the first floor of Gage Hall, where comings and goings could be observed.

I consider this my greatest Mankato camp triumph:

Which meant three or four hours of waiting time. First, there was a requirement to visit the men’s room across the hall. A few steps from the door, out came Travis Taylor.

Me: “Travis, do you have a few minutes for an interview?”

Answer: “Yes.”

Twenty minutes later, I’m bidding adieu to colleagues, heading back to the Twin Cities with several pages of Taylor quotes in a reporter’s notebook.