Football teams across the country, at every level from high school to college to the NFL, have started training camp over the past couple of weeks.

It’s an exciting time. We can see our favorite sport’s return on the horizon, and everyone involved is full of hope and optimism that this will be a great season for their team.

Of course, it also triggers a pet peeve that makes me want to put a fist through a wall.

Years and years ago, training camp was shorter and started a in early September rather than mid-July. As such, it was called “fall camp” and the term has endured for decades.

Of course, the term is outdated and wrong these days. NFL training camps begin around July 20. In Mississippi, MAIS teams started full practices on July 29 and MHSAA teams on Aug. 5.
That’s not “fall” at all. That is the smack dead middle of summer.

The word “fall” conjures up images of pleasant afternoon temperatures and changing leaves, with cool nights spent around a fire pit.

Right now, when football teams hit the field for afternoon practice, the temperatures are only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun. If the leaves are changing color, it’s because it hasn’t rained in a month and they’re dying. The fire pits are lit when someone spontaneously combusts next to them.

One day last week I had two assignments for our upcoming “Playmakers” football preview magazine — available in the Aug. 24-25 weekend edition, in case you’re wondering — that required me to be outside for about 90 minutes at each.

I racked up an impressive sweat-related stat line for the day — four shirts, three showers, two full changes of clothes and one borderline case of heat exhaustion. It was like putting up a disgusting triple-double.

I had a set of notes written on 4-by-6-inch pieces of notepad paper that I put in my shirt pocket before the second assignment. When I pulled them out afterward it looked like they had been dropped in the sink.

Besides the weather, the “fall practice” term doesn’t even make logical scientific sense.

Our first high school football game in Warren County is Porter’s Chapel vs. River Oaks on Aug. 16. St. Aloysius opens on Aug. 23, and the Red Carpet Bowl is Aug. 30. Colleges play their openers on Aug. 31. The first day of fall is Sept. 22, when teams are anywhere from three to six games into their seasons.

As someone who writes words for a living, this is beyond annoying.

So, please, consider this a public service announcement. Call it “training camp.” Call it “preseason practice.” But do not call it “fall camp” or “fall practice.” It’s just plain wrong.

Change can begin with a single rant and together we can change the world. Thank you.

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Ernest Bowker is the sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com