Pollock: Reminiscing on the history of training camps for the Buffalo Bills with portable goal posts

Photo: Chuck Pollock remembers the days of covering training camp at Niagara University and Fredonia when Gregg Williams tried two-a-days and you could walk on the field to interview players and coaches. Buffalobills.com photo.

A column by Sun Senior Sports Columnist CHUCK POLLOCK

The other day, a friend of mine told me he was anxiously awaiting the results of a lottery to see if he’d gotten tickets to Bills training camp which opens Wednesday morning at St. John Fisher.

If he lucked out, the free “tickets” would be in the form of an app for his cell phone.

I reflexively laughed out loud, thinking back to my first training camp in the summer of 1973.

In those days, the Bills were in the midst of a 13-year stint of conducting their preseason workouts at Niagara University, a school without a football team, using a soccer field lined to gridiron (excuse the cliche) dimensions and with portable goalposts.

But that was better than the franchise’s first nine years when it split training camp between hotels in Blasdell and East Aurora.

MY FIRST session I was incredulous that there were no required credentials nor any security for that matter.

But I did have an amusing interaction.

As I walked toward the practice field, by coincidence it was next to Joe Ferguson, the Bills’ third-round draft choice from Arkansas. It was his first day with the team after returning from the College All-Star Game.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: For the uninitiated, that was a charity meeting pitting a team of NFL draftees against the defending Super Bowl champions, in this case the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins … what could possibly go wrong?)

As we approached the field, wide receiver J.D. Hill, Buffalo’s No. 1 draft choice in ‘71 was standing there and yelled to Ferguson, “Hey rookie … over here.”

The backstory is, the Bills’ starting quarterback then was weak-armed Dennis Shaw, 1970’s second round pick, who had become a laughing stock in Buffalo’s press box with some of the balloon interceptions he threw. In three years as Buffalo’s starter he went 8-27-2 with 35 touchdown passes and 68 picks.

As we headed toward Hill, Fergy, generously listed as 6-foot-1, 180 pounds, but with a major-league arm, picked up a ball, but I didn’t know what to expect.

He unleashed a 40-yard, tight-spiraling rocket that got on the veteran wideout so fast he barely caught it as the throw bisected the four and zero on his jersey.

Hill’s eyes got as big as 50-cent pieces and he blurted, “Holy bleep, that’s the first time in two years I’ve caught a ball without a hump in it.”

BUT THAT wasn’t my only take from that day.

After practice, there was no public relations person wrangling the media on the field. We went where we wanted to and spoke to whom we wished. Lou Saban, O.J. Simpson, Bobby Chandler … players and coaches were just milling around the field waiting to be interviewed.

*A lucky fan gets a Trent Edwards autograph*

And unlike today when a mob of media descends on the field after practice at St. John Fisher, back then, there were no more than 10 of us: TV’s Van Miller, Rick Azar and Ed Kilgore in his rookie year with Channel 2, two reporters each from the Buffalo News and Courier, two from the Rochester papers and me.

IN 1981, the Bills moved camp to Fredonia State, a not particularly wise move.

By then, more fans were attending camp but the school’s location, near Lake Erie, was at the far-west portion of the team’s marketing area and an inconvenient trip for most everybody who wanted to drive there.

Still, Fredonia hosted camp for 19 years and there was security and credentials were required, but practices were on scattered fields making it hard for attendees to get up-close views.

Finally, in 2000, former team executive Russ Brandon wisely decided to move training camp to St. John Fisher in the Rochester suburb of Pittsford. Though it’s nearly 85 miles from Orchard Park to the university, the Rochester area is home to thousands of season-ticket holders.

The school has hosted 23 of Buffalo’s last 25 training camps, the lone exceptions in 2021 and ‘22 when Covid forced it to be held in the team’s practice facility at the stadium.

Over that span, security has been the tightest ever, merchandise — merch as it’s now called — sales are everywhere, to say nothing of tickets.

Now you only get in with a phone app and fans have to be enterprising to procure autographs.

My most vivid memories of camp in Pittsford was when Gregg Williams, in an effort to be the “tough-guy head coach” in contrast to his easy-going predecessor Wade Phillips, decided to earn the team’s respect with a barrage of two-a-days starting with camp in 2001.

Guess how that worked out, other than creating a locker room full of enemies?

Williams lasted three years, went 17-31, and never did connect with his team.

Mercifully, the NFL Players Association decreed an end to two-a-days in 2011.

(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)

Read other columns about the Bills, Bonnies and local and national sports from Chuck Pollock, a national Associated Press Columnist of the Year:

• Tony Hunter’s passing evokes memories of Jim Kelly in the draft

• Mark Schmidt on the NIL deals and the Bona NIT mess

• Pollock on listening to the radio and the days of Willie Mays

• Houghton’s Phil Stockin gets Cazzie Russell to the Castle in Olean and then a title for the Knicks?

• The right hire for St. Bonaventure to lead the athletic department

Pollock: Reminiscing on the history of training camps for the Buffalo Bills with portable goal posts

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