Jim Souhan: Unlike the old days, Vikings almost ready to break training camp

MANKATO — In the old days, NFL training camps tested players' muscles, joints, patience and sanity.

Vikings camp used to last a month or more, when grown men were sequestered in tiny dorm rooms with other large men. Their only refuge from the bruising, numbing routine was the one bar within sprinting distance of Gage Hall, the Albatross.

In the old days, by the time the Vikings would pack up to leave Mankato, just about everyone was sore and ornery. This year, the Vikings should feel fresher when they pack.

They break camp Wednesday, after less than two weeks in Mankato. Instead of grueling two-a-days, Vikings coach Brad Childress emphasized short, crisp practices.

Instead of passing the time by drinking at the 'Tross and watching TV in their dorm rooms, the modern Vikings find more technologically advanced methods of amusing themselves.

Tight end Visanthe Shiancoe plays video games with challengers from across the country. Receiver Sidney Rice spends time in his hyperbaric chamber. Receiver Bernard Berrian, along with Shiancoe, "tweeted" updates from camp.

Anything to pass the time. In the '60s, Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall, bored with the training-camp routine, decided to test a three-stage rocket built out of paint cans and explosives. The pilot: an unfortunate amphibian that Marshall and his teammates named "Astro-Frog."

On Wednesday, the current batch of Vikings are expected to carefully wind their way north on Hwy. 169. Former coach Bud Grant would make players wait until 5 p.m. to leave for an 8 p.m. exhibition game at the Metrodome, so players would line up their cars and start revving their engines at 4:55 p.m.

At 5, Marshall would fire a revolver into the air, and everyone in St. Peter would sprint for their basements.

Today's player is wary of camera phones in bars. That wasn't a concern 20 years ago, when the players' bar of choice was the now-defunct 'Tross. Curfew was at 11 p.m. So at 10:53 p.m. most nights, Vikings would rush toward the door and careen down the street. Unless they were hungry. Then, like defensive tackle Keith Millard, they just might try to whip through a fast-food drivethrough, smash into a stanchion, abandon their truck and sprint the rest of the way home.

He left his car, but he beat curfew, avoiding the $1,500 fine. The damage to his car cost $7,500.

Today's camps are shorter and easier because of roster limitations and the threat of injury. They're more humane, but today's players don't experience as many bonding, team-building experiences, like frog-launching, and they don't benefit from the cardiovascular test of sprinting from a wrecked car to a dormitory at 10:58 p.m.