Varsity - The Official Digital Magazine of Wisconsin Athletics

Exposure shows perception of program BEHIND THE DESK BARRY ALVAREZ • UW DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS L ast Friday, I had the plea- sure of taking part in what amounted to a three-hour in- fomercial for our football program, our university and our community thanks to SiriusXM Radio. Madison was one of the stops on their inaugural tour of college preseason training camps. Prior to coming here, they were at LSU, Georgia, Oregon, Michigan and Texas. I thought their presence spoke volumes for our program, espe- cially since they spent three hours raving about the facilities, the campus, the game day environ- ment and Madison. That's invaluable exposure. It was much like when ESPN's College GameDay was on the Bascom Hall lawn last year. You couldn't beat the backdrop of blue skies and Lake Mendota. It was like a postcard. We heard from people around the world who saw that broadcast and talked about how beautiful our campus is and what it meant to them to see our school pictured that way. It helps in recruiting and it's good for our alums. It's a win-win. Mark Packer was the SiriusXM host and I enjoyed chatting with him. I didn't find out until later that he's the son of Billy Packer, the former CBS college basketball analyst. They broadcasted from the Kellner Hall concourse and, when they were done with the show, they wanted to know where they should 12 » VARSITY AUGUST 9, 2012 go to get a feel of the campus and the city. That was easy. I told them they needed to get over to the Union Terrace — and maybe walk Lang- don Street — before checking out State Street, where they could sample some of the local cuisine. Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio State were the only Big Ten stops for the SiriusXM tour. It's nice to be in that company. But when you think about it, we're back-to-back Big Ten champs and we're coming off back-to-back Rose Bowls. That's hard to do. "I love this time of the year because it signals a return to football with the opening of camp." It's a far cry from when they used to talk about the Big Two and the Little Eight. Now we're one of the top three in the league. I love this time of the year be- cause it signals a return to football with the opening of camp. There were a lot of things that I liked about two-a-days when I coached. I liked teaching. I liked seeing the freshmen who were going to help us. I liked seeing the guys who made the biggest jump over the summer. I liked seeing the people who were going to contribute. We used to grind. Our play- ers would go twice a day for two to three weeks. One year, we even had three-a-days for awhile. Things have changed a lot since then. The NCAA rule changes have been good for the sport. Now they report to camp in shape and you don't have to condition them like you did in the past. Now everybody is doing more teaching than banging around. The pros were the first to take this approach, and we got some ideas from them. I'd send my as- sistants to NFL camps and they'd come back with different practice schedules. Everybody is doing it smarter today. You don't have to bang them every single day. The important thing is to put them in the posi- tion where they've hit enough and they know how to hit and absorb contact. Montee Ball just has to get his timing down. Maybe he gets banged around a little, but not much. We held out Ronnie Dayne his senior year, we didn't let any- one tackle him in practice. But Montee has got to get bumped in the inside drill. The way our guys practice — they go good-against-good several times during the day — Montee is going to get the feel for the holes and that type of thing. He won't go to the ground. But he has played enough foot- ball, it won't take him long to get used to contact again.

• Cover