A Visit to the Minnesota Vikings Training Camp
Todd Swank's Diary Entry for July 28, 2019
On Saturday night, we had the honor of attending the wedding of Jamie Erickson & Sawyer VanHecke. I've known Jamie since she was a young girl so it was a special treat to have the chance to spend this day with her as well as her friends and family.
Jamie is the daughter of our old friends Jay and Carmen Erickson. Jay and I worked together for nearly 14 years at Nor-Tech and hit a lot of highs and a couple of lows together during that time. Jay delivered a beautiful, heartfelt speech for his daughter that had the whole place in tears. Such a beautiful ceremony and reception.
We like to get dressed up to go to weddings. Sometimes we do it and go to weddings of people we don't even know when we are bored. Thankfully, we aren't bored very often.
Unfortunately for Luke, he had to work so wasn't able to join us for the occasion. But Avery, Miss Sheri, and I had enough fun for the four of us!
We were lucky enough to have dinner with some old friends, Todd and Tammy Murr as well as their very nice daughters. We were also joined by Dr. David Bollig so that made the night even more special. I always have an awesome time with him.
All in all, it was a an incredible event. You could tell this young couple is truly in love and are destined for long and happy lives together. They had so many good friends and loving family there to celebrate and support them that it made everyone in attendance inspired and happy to be alive. Weddings like that are really kind of magical. Congratulations, Jamie and Sawyer!!
On Sunday, we were excited to attend our very first practice at the Minnesota Vikings Training Camp at the TCO Performance Center. We always wanted to attend when they used to do training camp in Mankato, but never got around to it. This year, we made it a priority to go there.
The place is pretty incredible. They have at least 5 outdoor fields that I saw and several huge buildings which I think house at least a couple more. It makes it a bit difficult to follow the action when all the players are spread out so far and wide, but we were able to still see enough to get really excited about the upcoming NFL season. Are you ready for some football?
It's our second season with the $84 million man, Kirk Cousins. His debut year didn't go quite as planned, but everyone seems to be pretty excited that we will rebound in a big way this year. Here's hoping.
Adam Thielen and Stephon Diggs were one of the highest performing wide receiver combos in the league last year. There's been a lot of talk about who's going to step up to be the #3 guy around here so it was fun watching the entire group practice together to see who was standing out. I'm keeping my bets on #12, Chad BeeBe.
Last year around this time, our star running back Dalvin Cook was still recovering from a serious knee injury so it was good to see him in there fully working this year. When we saw him, he was doing drills lined up against newly signed running back, Ameer Abdullah formerly with Detroit. They both looked pretty intense and ready to go.
All in all, the boys weren't quite as excited about the Vikings Training camp as I'd hoped. Avery called it a bit underwhelming and they said it's like watching them warm up before a game. I'm not sure what they were expecting, but I still enjoyed myself and am ready for the Vikings to start their path to the Super Bowl!
While we were there, Miss Sheri and I were selected as the Best Fans in the NFL. So we got that going for us. Which is nice.