A sign marks the dorm rooms at the Bengals' training camp in Georgetown, Ky. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        GEORGETOWN, Ky. — Last year, the Bengals lured Kevin Kaesviharn away from a substitute-teaching job after cornerback Rodney Heath tore his hamstring in October. Last month, the two arrived at training camp in pursuit of the same role, as the main backup.

        They began as relative strangers and competitors. They were assigned to the same dormitory suite.

        And they ended up friends.

        “He's so humble,” said Heath, 27, a fourth-year player who came into the NFL as an undrafted free agent. “I understand him. He had to do it the same way I did.”

        Bengals training camp, which closes today at Georgetown College when the team returns to Cincinnati, was again an odd mix of competition and camaraderie. Eighty-seven players came together for a month to battle for 53 roster spots and bond as teammates.

        They endured the intensity of twice-daily practices in the heat and humidity, the early-morning weightlifting sessions, the classroom study periods and the dormitory life. They learned to execute dozens of plays and formations, and they learned to live with each other.

Bengals players Cory Hall, left, and Riall Johnson make their way across campus to go to an evening team meeting. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        The Bengals, like most clubs in the league, whisk their players away to an isolated college campus to minimize distraction and maximize deliberation. The experience was designed to prepare for the 16-game regular season, which begins Sept. 8 against San Diego at Paul Brown Stadium.

        “The most important thing is, your team is together in a 24-hour environment,” Bengals head coach Dick LeBeau said. “The players are not going home.”

        The Bengals are 2-0 in the preseason and will play their third exhibition game Saturday night against New Orleans at home. The goal this year is the playoffs, which would be the Bengals' first since the 1990 season. In the NFL, the season is shaped in training camp. So are relationships.

        For Kaesviharn, Heath and their other two suitemates, safeties Cory Hall and JoJuan Armour, this was a time to build their friendship and support system. The closer they get now, the more they can help and rely on each other in the regular season.

        Everything included

        Almost all aspects of the players' daily lives, except personal laundry, were covered by Bengals or Georgetown College staff. Three meals and a 9 p.m. snack were prepared and available free of charge in a cafeteria. Mail was sorted. Maids cleaned dorm rooms.

        Even getting around the camp was hassle-free. The four dormitories that house players, coaches and staff sit behind the east bleachers of Rawlings Stadium. The conference center, where players eat and attend meetings, rests on a hill above the south end zone. The locker and weight rooms are beneath the west grandstand. Nothing was more than a two-minute walk away.

        Still, some players would wheel their sport-utility vehicles around the circular main drive to get to practice. Two players rode bicycles — 294-pound defensive tackle Tony Williams and 308-pound Matt O'Dwyer, who jokingly rang a bell whenever he approached walkers.

Between practice sessions, Riall Johnson, Mark Roman, JoJuan Armour, and T. J. Houshmandzadeh get into a video game. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        For star players such as tailback Corey Dillon and linebacker Takeo Spikes, training camp is about getting ready and staying healthy. For others, it was about gaining or securing playing time. For a handful more, it was about winning one of the few remaining spots.

        The four players who shared Quad No. 121 — Heath, Kaesviharn, Hall and Armour — came with varied agendas.

        Heath, a Western Hills High graduate, had to show he could still play after hamstring surgery. He missed some practices early in camp with an ankle injury, but came back to perform well and now appears to have made the team. “To go out and make it through, it's a good feeling,” Heath said.

        Kaesviharn, 25, seemed a lock to make the team after playing well and earning three starts last year. This year, he could think bigger. “I'm working toward making the playoffs; that's a goal,” he said. “Last year (in Green Bay's camp), I was just trying to make a team.”

        Hall had to relearn an old position. He spent most of last season at free safety (more geared toward defending passes), then moved in the offseason back to strong safety (more focused on stopping runs). “Every day, when we watch film, I'll write something down in my notebook that I have to work on,” he said.

        And Armour, who lost his starting job at strong safety to Hall, had to deal with the demotion while bonding with his successor.

        “Cory is a great guy,” said Armour, 26, who played college ball at Miami University.

        “Outside of football, he's a down-to-earth person,” he said. “We go to meetings together, we go to breakfast together, we're always together. That's the kind of person I like to have around me. Cory knows there is competition between all the safeties, but it's not going to affect our friendship.”

        They are always together. That's by design.

        “All we have right now is each other,” Jim Lippincott, Bengals director of football operations, said while watching a training camp practice. “And that glues you together.”

        An average day

        A football squad is closer to a paramilitary organization than any other sports team. And training camp is boot camp. Almost every minute of the day is regimented.

        Players were up before 7 a.m. and had to report to the weight room by 7:15. After 45 minutes of lifting, they would trudge up the hill to the conference center for breakfast.

Neil Rackers practices field goals while rookie kicker Travis Dorsch watches during practice Tuesday. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        The rest of an average day:

        8:30: Players on the kicking teams meet. Everyone else has a short break before the team meeting at 9, which leads into defensive and offensive unit meetings.

        What happens on the field is studied on film. Theory becomes application, and application is examined and re-examined. The process is repeated until it becomes more physical reflex than thought process.

        “Everything our coaches are going to use on a Sunday is being installed here,” Lippincott said. “And as the season goes on, they pick and choose what they've already installed to use in a weekly game plan.”

        10:40: Players walk back down the hill to get dressed for the morning skills session — practice in shorts without pads.

        12:15 p.m. The team's medical staff provides treatments for the omnipresent aches and pains before lunch.

        “The most important thing,” Kaesviharn said, “(is) taking care of your body.”

        12:30: Most players eat in the cafeteria. Some take their lunches back to their rooms in carry-out cartons. Heath is one. He goes into his room, puts a movie into his TV/VCR and checks his e-mail on his laptop while eating.

        “I'm a horror guy,” he said one day while watching Silver Bullet.

        He tries to nap after eating. Across the barren living room, furnished only with institutional couch, chair and coffee table, Kaesviharn is in his room. He either naps or makes calls on his cell phone. Usually, he calls his wife, Michelle, who is seven months' pregnant with their first child back home in Sioux Falls, S.D.

        “In Green Bay, we had two guys in a room,” he said. “You couldn't get any space.”

        On this afternoon, he makes another call, to get more information about the $5,000 fine he received from the NFL office for wearing his game pants too short — above the knee — in the preseason game at Indianapolis.

        Contrasting the quiet of their rooms is the video-game trash-talking taking place in Armour's room. One day, he and Hall were having an electronic boxing match.

        Hall: “I'm in your grill.”

        Armour: “Come and get your beatin', punk.”

        2:55: Players sign autographs for fans lined up behind a rope leading to the upper practice field. Once on the field, players are greeted by defensive line coach Tim Krumrie's raspy voice counting down the minutes until the start of practice. “C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, get your hats (helmets) on,” Krumrie yells.

        “Camp is where you forge the relationships between the players,” said cornerbacks coach Kevin Coyle. “When we get into games, and they look across and see guys they got through camp with, they will have the sense of not wanting to let anybody down. They want to hold up their responsibility to the team.”

        4:55: Two hours after practice starts, an air horn sounds, and LeBeau calls his players into a circle on the field. He speaks for several minutes. If he relieves them of post-practice sprints, known as “gassers,” there is a loud cheer. If not, players walk to the sideline, take off their shoulder pads and helmets and line up for the 200-yard run that covers the width of the field four times.

        5:45: Dinner. The food this year gets a number of complaints — “too greasy,” “same thing every day” — and few compliments from players. They also aren't happy with the hard, dry condition of the practice fields, which leaves many players wearing sandals and ankle-high white socks to pamper their sore feet.

        7:05: More meetings. More film. More thumbing through thick, black-bound playbooks.

        9:00: A snack is served, anything from pasta to ice cream.

        12:01 a.m.: Curfew.

        The men in Quad 121, they said, would get to sleep once Armour quieted down for the night.

        “You learn about yourself,” Kaesviharn said of the training camp experience.

        “You're going to put up against a lot: mentally with all the meetings, physically with the two-a-days in the heat. And you have to deal with that. When you get into games, and adversity hits, you know you've been through some tough things and know you can get through it again.”

        Lights out.

At training camp, competition and camaraderie forge a team Bengals training camp by the numbers Farmer returns, hamstring and all Grass-roots effort working well at Paul Brown Stadium He's the one who brings bad news Chargers 31, Rams 10 Rams fullback fractures left foot in preseason game

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