Whether it’s ice cream or hibachi, there are many ways to foster camaraderie between teammates.
It’s that time of the year when the position coaches begin to take their rooms out for a big, expensive dinner. The first two groups have already gone out.
The tight end room and the linebacking room have already gone out for dinner. The tight ends got ice cream from Bruster’s while the linebackers got a hibachi dinner.
The tight ends were led by Tim Salem, of course, and Gavin Bartholomew, Karter Johnson and Marcus Epps were in attendance. Joined by Jake Renda, Cole Mitchell, Josh Altsman and Trevor Faulkner.
It was an even bigger group out for the linebacking corps. Ryan Manalac — and his son Lewis — brought the linebackers out for hibachi.
And the whole room was there, including assistant linebackers coach Marquan Pope. It’s very nice to see Pope, who suffered a career-ending injury before his career could even begin last spring, as a contributor in the room.
The entire linebacking corps was in attendance Thursday, which included likely starters Bangally Kamara, Shayne Simon and Solomon DeShields.
But veterans like Brandon George, Aydin Henningham, Nick Lapi, Dylan Bennett and Luke DelGaudio were around, as well as youngsters like Braylan Lovelace, Jordan Bass, Rasheem Biles, Kyle Louis, Abe Ibrahim, Drew Foster.
It isn’t the oldest room around, despite veterans like Simon and George, but there is a veteran core with young, blossoming talent waiting in the wings and slightly older talent ready to truly breakout.
