TEMPE, Ariz. — In just two weeks, ASU football will be back on the field for the start of fall camp, the first under new head coach Kenny Dillingham.
This camp will see the Sun Devils bring back a fan-favorite tradition, a three-day trip up to Payson to spend a few days at Camp Tontozona from August 10-12.
The Sun Devils have not made the trip up north in four years due to turf renovations, COVID-19 restrictions, and weather issues.
But Dillingham made it clear when speaking with reporters Monday. As long as he is the head coach, he wants his team to travel up to Camp T.
"I would like to go to Camp T as long as we can," Dillingham said. "I think it's great in all aspects, to build memories, to build camaraderie. It's just, you need to struggle. You need it all."
Dillingham spoke at length about Camp T and its importance to his team, but what he mostly wants his team to do during their trip is become brothers.
"Life's about experiences, good and bad, and sometimes they're intertwined," Dillingham said. "I think Camp T is an experience that's good and bad and it's all intertwined into one and those are what people remember. You don't remember the play. You remember these moments on sports teams. These events. And that's what we're trying to create is we're trying to create a brotherhood through the highs and lows, the ups and downs of fall camp and this is part of it."
Part of that experience is disconnecting and putting the cell phones away for a few days.
"Normally we're going to have a practice in the morning and a walk-through at night (along with) meetings, you know, it's camp," Dillingham said. "Well, at Camp T, we're not doing the walk-through at night. It is football, a little bit of meetings to clean up the practice and then it's from 11/noon on, right, they're going to have to do this called 'hang out.' And they're going to have to do it without a cell phone, they're going to have to do it without a television, without a video game. They're going to do it with a deck of cards. They're going to do it with a Jenga set. They're going to do it with dice. And they're going to have to hang out and talk to each other and build relationships."
Dillingham continued saying that conversations with former players helped him decide that Camp T was going to be more about team-building than practicing.
"One of the things that I got from the former players here that the most successful teams here was the togetherness that they had," Dillingham said. "And the only way that you can build that is by doing things like this. It's putting them in environments that they don't want to be in. Nobody wants to go stay in a bunk. C'mon, I don't want to go stay in a bunk. But you know what? We're going to tell the stories and they're going to tell the stories about how this team and how this culture was created. And they're going to go back to Camp T and there's going to be something that happens were a roach crawls into somebody's pillowcase, right, and they're going to freak out and tell the story forever."
However, Dillingham does understand that going up to Camp T does come with some issues. He said former and current players who have been to Camp T discussed showers, bathrooms, and food as the major issues.
Dillingham said they will be bringing some things up to Payson to help players address the bathroom and shower issues and that they have created a meal plan with the team nutritionist to make sure players don't lose weight on the trip.
However, Dillingham did say he does not want his players to feel comfortable at camp.
"But part of this is to be uncomfortable," Dillingham said. "Football's not comfortable, right? You go on the road at Washington State, Oregon State, those aren't comfortable games. Those are very uncomfortable games. You stay 45 minutes away, you drive, it's cold, it's rainy, it's just uncomfortable. That's why nobody's ever gone undefeated in Pac-12 play. It's because the league is so diverse in terms of the different places you play. So I think you need to put your players in these adverse situations to get them to wake up and their back hurts because they slept on a single, but they still have to go practice. That's part of life. That's part of football. That's week nine, right? And to think that's not week nine is false."
The Sun Devils' first day of fall camp is July 31st. They leave for Camp T on August 9 and will hold a scrimmage on August 12 before returning to the Valley.
ASU opens their season on August 31 at Sun Devil Stadium against Southern Utah.