This time of year used to mean hot, sweaty double-session football practices

I played football for five years, from eighth grade through senior year. It was not my main sport (that was track), but in retrospect, I've always been glad I went through the experience. It taught me a lot about myself, hard work, and all of those other things sports are supposed to teach you.

We always started evening conditioning practices around the first of July, but the real work began in early August when we would commence two-a-day practices. These were three-hour sessions held twice each day for about 2 1/2 weeks in advance of the first game.

"Doubles," as we called them, were designed to accomplish a number of things:

• To install and perfect our offensive and defensive schemes
• To build a sense of team unity and shared hard work
• To condition us physically (we wore full uniforms for almost every practice, no matter how hot it was)
• Perhaps most importantly, to condition us mentally

By the end of the first week of double sessions, most of us were dragging. The heat, the running, the hitting, the brain work expended to learn the playbook...everything came together to break you down a little and, ultimately, become a better player and better teammate.

The hitting was a little worse for those who, like me, were running backs. One way or another, we got popped on every play. Looking back on it, I'm proud of how much punishment those of us who toted the ball took.

There was some sort of conditioning work at the end of every practice. Sometimes it was sprints, sometimes it was a longer run, sometimes it was up-downs, sometimes it was bear crawls, etc. All of this strenuous activity was the reason we were never, ever out-conditioned by our opponents in the fourth quarter of games.

The conditioning ramped up several notches at the end of the afternoon practice on the last Thursday of double sessions. "Bloody Thursday" is what the players called it, though Coach Smith, who oversaw the team's conditioning work, liked to refer to it as "Celebration Thursday."

Either way, it was rough. It was endless running, movement, calisthenics, and whatever other evil activity Coach Smith could think of. It lasted a long, long time, and sometimes guys simply couldn't make it to the end. Your lungs burned, your muscles were awash in lactic acid, and everything in your brain screamed "Stop, stop, stop, stop!"

But when that final whistle blew, the feeling of accomplishment and elation was unmatched. I can't even describe it.

If I miss anything, it's that feeling. But honestly, I'll take being 51 years old now over going back to those brutal double-session practices any day.