Fall camp is a grind. For almost three weeks before fall semester begins, Hillsdale College football players spend more than 14 hours per day at the Roche Sports Complex prepping for the season. Every evening, the entire team — players and coaches — come together for a team meeting. But the players convene about 20 minutes early. And while they wait for the meeting to begin, they call out someone’s name to tell a joke — or roast a teammate.
“It’s just nice ending the day with some laughter,” junior defensive lineman Casey Schukow said. “At the end of each day it’s nice to just come together for a little bit, share some laughs, and mentally just relax and take some deep breaths. It probably is my favorite part of camp.”
Not every player does a roast or gets roasted, but they all enjoy bonding through the shared experience. While the players take a break from football, the coaches wait outside the meeting room.
“They understand that that’s our time to tell each other jokes, roast people, and relax a little bit. Sometimes they’ll hear it,” Schukow said.
Sophomore quarterback Chance Stewart said he was roasted more this fall since everyone got to know him in his first full offseason with the Chargers.
“I’ve been roasted plenty,” Stewart said. “Last year I was new still so nobody knew anything about me, so I was just like the quiet kid in the corner.”
On the last night of fall camp the Chargers put on a rookie show in which the freshmen roast each other, their teammates, and sometimes even their coaches.
“It’s really fun when they take shots at the coaches and the upperclassmen, about all of our quirks,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “Usually I get a couple different versions and variations of how I act or what I say or hand gestures or whatever I do.”
While the freshmen haven’t gotten to know everyone by that time, the older players will give information about their teammates to the freshmen to use in their roasts.
“This year’s was really good. We were laughing the whole time,” junior linebacker Jay Rose said. “They did a good job.”
The Chargers don’t have daily team meetings during the season, so the roasts end with fall camp.
Still, the roasts allow players to get a break and get to know each other during one of the busiest times of the year.
“It’s a break from football,” Stewart said. “You get to have fun, and you get to see some of the character of kids and see how they act, so that works perfect.”