For those of you who do not know, I currently live in Midlothian, VA. It’s a suburb of Richmond, so like most people around here, even though we don’t technically live in the city, we’re Richmonders. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with this city, but we are the proud home of Legend Beer, The Flying Squirrels, more tattoo parlors than you would ever know what to do with, and most recently, the Washington Redskins.
Now, please go back to Washington, Maryland or whatever combination of the two you have worked out.
Nothing against the Redskins, most of the people I know here are fans of the burgundy and gold. But ever since the Redskins’ training camp landed on Richmond about three weeks ago, I’ve been counting down the days until its over.
For those of you who have never had a training camp in your home, here’s what happens. A professional football team uplifts their entire training and coaching staff and players, takes them to a city that is not the one they play in, and hold up shop for a month in your city. This process disrupts everything from traffic, to parking, to hotel accommodations, to restaurants to radio programming to lately my sanity on social media.
Ever since the Redskins dropped in town, my Facebook and Twitter feeds have been a constant feed of some form of the following: “I said hi to Coach Shanahan today!!!” “RG3 looked at me during practice!” “I got an autograph from a practice team player!” This one act of a training camp has sent everyone I know into some sort of teenage-crush frenzy that has future out of work players seem like the hottest commodity ever. I need this to end for my own sanity.
I want to be able to drive downtown without having to wonder if an area has been blocked off for Redskins’ players. I want to be able to listen to The Herd on ESPN radio instead of the Redskins practice, but more importantly I want people to stop informing me that meeting Pat White is the equivalent of meeting Tom Cruise.
Richmond, home of the Washington Redskins.