VERO BEACH — The University of South Florida football team arrived at the Vero Beach Sports Village Saturday evening for the start of their 12-day camp. Their arrival marks the second straight year the Bulls have used the facility for training camp
“We’re excited to be here, and I appreciate all the fans being here to open the doors for us,” second-year USF head coach Skip Holtz said. “The welcoming committee we had is just great. People here at the Sports Village, and people here in Vero Beach have been incredible to work with, and we are excited to be back.”
The Bulls are coming off an 8-5 2010 season which they ended with a 31-26 victory over Clemson in the Meineke Car Care Bowl. This was the program’s first win over a BCS opponent in school history.
“Every team has a life expectancy of one year, so this is a new team, a new year, and we’ve got to put it back together,” Holtz said. “We have a lot of guys returning who have played football for us, and we’ve got a lot of newcomers who are here for the first time. We’re starting kind of at square one, and the attitude of the players has been incredible. We’ve got to build depth on this football team and we’ve got to continue to get better – we’re not taking anything for granted.”
Much has been made of last year’s trip to Vero Beach by the Bulls, as Holtz and others declared the trip an overwhelming part of their success in 2010.
“Coming back was a decision, really, that we made before we left (Vero Beach) last year,” Holtz said. “This was so beneficial to our team. There are zero distractions, the food is great, the people are great, and it is a wonderful team-building exercise.”
“There aren’t too many times you take a football team away to camp and they’re excited about coming back,” Holtz said. “They kept on asking, ‘Are we coming back to Vero? Are we coming back to Vero?'”
Another person who was happy to see Holtz and company back at Vero Beach Sports Village was Vero Beach resident and USF alum Janine Kaminski.
“Coach Holtz has brought a lot of new enthusiasm into the program,” Kaminski said. “It’s exciting, because back when I went to USF we didn’t have a football team yet. Now it’s a reality. During the season we travel over to Tampa for games.”
Kaminski’s likes that her kids can come out to the practices and see the Bulls up close and personal, as all of their practices in Vero Beach are open to the public.
“It is exciting for them to come out here and watch USF practice while they are here, and it was neat for them to see the practices last year,” Kaminski said. “You can’t get the feeling (of their level of play) unless you are right next to the players to see how much faster they play than high schoolers.”
“Since we don’t have the Dodgers in Vero Beach anymore, USF has brought some new life into town,” Kaminski added. “Now (the Bulls) in competition with University of Florida and Florida State, and it makes it fun because those are the big teams everybody is always rooting for around here.”