The flight from Minneapolis to LaGuardia ran late. The connection to Hartford landed well into the evening. The Peter Pan bus to Northampton brought the three of them — “me and two other farmers from Minnesota,’’ recalled Gino Cappelletti — to their first Patriots training camp.
Destination: UMass Amherst, summer home of the newly founded American Football League’s Boston Patriots in 1960.
“It’s midnight, and the three of us are walking around the dorms, dragging our bags with us — clip-clop, clip-clop — and guys are yelling at us from their rooms, ‘Hey, who the hell’s out there?’ ’’ Cappelletti, now 82 years old, said the other day. “One by one, eventually we all find a dorm room with a bed. But it’s late. No sheets. No pillows. Just a mattress, that’s it. We got off to a shaky start.’’
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The 2016 New England Patriots open training camp this coming week at their pigskin Shangri-La in Foxborough. None of the hired hands will be poking around the Kraft family’s sprawling grounds at midnight in search of digs. More than a half-century removed from their humble beginnings, the Patriots, rookies and veterans alike, are big men on a big campus, arriving in town via private jet, luxury cars or SUVs.
Fans, eager to finalize their fantasy teams, know every player’s height, weight, best time in the 40, even their preferred energy bar (organic, of course). They’ll stream to Gillette Stadium by the thousands. Oh, they’ll come, Bill, they’ll most definitely come. The truly devout have been fully invested since mid-April, when the Patriots began the voluntary offseason training program (three sessions, total nine weeks), dotted by separate camps for rooks and vets.
“Much different than our day,’’ noted Tom Yewcic, the former punter, whose first Patriots camp was in 1961. “These guys don’t rest their body much nowadays, do they? We did. The season ended and that was pretty much it until camp started in July. You see a lot of injuries now. Some of that could be because they never give their body a rest.’’
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In those early years, noted former Patriots general manager Patrick Sullivan, players reported to camp to whip themselves into shape, most of them too engaged in offseason jobs to concentrate on staying in football condition. Two-a-day workouts (banned years ago) were the norm. Rookies weren’t anointed instant millionaires in the 1960 AFL. They showed up as kids, pockets empty and heads full of dreams.
Cappelletti, for instance, returned to his native Minnesota for offseasons, one summer tending bar at Mac & Caps, a sports bar in Minneapolis co-owned by his brother, Guido. Raised in the northern Minnesota Iron Range, he worked a railroad job during the summers in his early teens, eager to take a job in the iron ore mines once turning 18.
Yewcic, who still resides in Arlington, where he settled in his Patriots days, worked year-round in sales for a medical supplies company.
Once home in Minnesota, said Cappelletti, he would start running to get in shape, and find someone to throw him passes. None of that happened until approximately one month before reporting to Amherst.
“Turned out, 1961 was my breakout season,’’ recalled Cappelletti, cut by the Detroit Lions only days before first reporting to the Patriots. “Late in the ’60 season, because of injuries, the Patriots put me out there as a receiver. And they made it clear . . . either I caught passes or I wouldn’t be around the next year. So, hey, I caught passes.’’
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Yewcic also had to create his own version of OTAs (office team activities). He would head to local high school football fields, often the one in Arlington, with his trunk full of footballs and boot punt after punt to get his leg in shape and improve his accuracy. He recruited area high school kids to recover kicks, catch his passes.
“The kids loved it,’’ recalled Yewcic, who was also a backup quarterback. “But it cost me a little bit of money, because I’d have to buy ’em lemonade and sandwiches when we finished.’’
For the 5-6 weeks in Amherst each summer, recalled Cappelletti, team unity was virtually guaranteed, with players bonding around an endless string of two-a-days, film sessions, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the mess hall.
“We kept the rookies on their toes,’’ he recalled. “If they showed up in a car, we’d hide it in the woods, or we would wheel it down to one of the local lakes.’’
For the record, the cars were not wheeled into the lakes.
“No,’’ said Cappelletti, “but close . . . very close.’’
The first Patriots camp in Amherst, recalled Cappelletti, was a melting pot, with players “coming from all corners of the United States and even Canada.’’ It’s virtually impossible in today’s NFL to find a camp not stocked with players who’ve worked their way from college ball to the pros. Back then, said Cappelletti, their ranks included truck drivers, bartenders, pipefitters, and plumbers.
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The Super Bowl and its $4 million commercials weren’t even yet a dream. Fans came to workouts, but crowds were measured in the hundreds, not the thousands. Baseball was still America’s pastime. Billy Sullivan’s Patriots competed not only against the Red Sox, Bruins, and Celtics, but New England’s ardor for the New York Football Giants.
“It’s about 7:30 and a bunch of us are back watching TV at the dorm,’’ recalled Cappelletti, noting the only “air conditioning” was the tiny fan each player had in his dorm window. “Just one TV, black and white. And no one really knew anyone at this point. So one night, one of the guys gets up out of his chair, goes up to the TV, and he takes the knob and goes . . . brrrrp . . . and changes the channel.’’
Another player abruptly stood up and changed it back to the original station. Soon, both players were nose to nose in front of the TV.
“Guys in the room are on pins and needles . . . they don’t know what the hell is going on,’’ said Cappelletti. “Well, turns out they were both wrestlers in camp for a tryout. They start throwing chairs at each other, smacking one another. It was wild. That’s just how it was. We had wrestlers, truck drivers, doormen . . . guys there from all physical endeavors of life.’’
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The wrestlers didn’t make the official 1960 Patriots roster.
“No way!” said Cappelletti. “Those guys didn’t know a three-point stance from standing upright.’’
The Patriots hold their first practice on Wednesday. It’s NFL time again in America, the game bigger, players bigger, and with Amherst and the Patriots’ beginnings a distant memory.
Kevin Paul Dupont’s “On Second Thought” appears regularly in the Sunday Globe Sports section. He can be reached at dupont@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKPD.