As the countdown to the first IFAF Women's World Championship continues, all 45 members of Team USA and their coaching staff are hard at work near Austin, Texas, fine tuning game plans, perfecting techniques and forging ahead as a unit with a single goal: bring home gold from Stockholm just in time for July 4.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Defensive Coordinator Anthony Stone said after Tuesday's morning practice. "[The IWFL] and USA Football coming together is phenomenal. These 45 girls are the pioneers of this thing we have going on right now."
The one constant for Head Coach John Konecki and his team - from pre-camp preparations to the grind of two-a-days - has been a keen understanding of what it means to represent an entire nation at an international competition. That sense of privilege continued to fuel Team USA during the morning practice on training camp's third day.
"The anticipation has been building every day, and every once in a while they'll start talking about something and you just think, 'Wow, USA. I'm representing this country,'" defensive end Donna Wilkinson said. "You get emotional and you're like, 'I'm actually part of something so much bigger than myself that I'm just grateful to be a part of it.' So I think all of us are starting to feel that anticipation and that edge and excitement."
Throughout the morning, the Americans broke up into position groups on defense - where defensive linemen worked on getting to the quarterback and linebackers practiced their zone drops. With most of the running game in place, Konecki began to install various pass plays into his spread offense. Coaches and players note the intensity and focus that have characterized camp thus far.
"All in all, we're really gelling together into a team - when you have a team and you're trying to install a playbook, usually you get more time," Stone said. "We don't get that amount of time. All the girls - offense, defense - they're doing a phenomenal job. And I love it because they're asking questions."
"Everybody's out there every day trying to get better - the energy out on the field is unbelievable and it's a really neat thing to be a part of," quarterback Sami Grisafe said. "It is a lot to take in, but everybody that's out here has great football knowledge... once the terminology was understood and everybody could apply that to what they already know or learned, things have really started rolling. I think today's practice reflected that - we're starting to polish it, make it second nature. Every practice is better and better."
Given the limited amount of time Team USA has to prepare for Stockholm, Konecki and his staff are hard-pressed to cover too many details on the practice field. As a result, creating team chemistry and mastering the essentials of all three phases of football are main objectives as camp winds down.
"Everybody is very excited about the level of play we have out on the field, and we're getting more comfortable with it," Grisafe said. "It's becoming more and more of a competition between offense and defense, which is a lot of fun. Everybody's out there trying to get better. The energy out on the field is unbelievable and it's a really neat thing to be a part of."
