The Park City High School football team is preparing to take a renovated Dozier Field for their home opener against Morgan on Aug. 28. Thankfully for those who just couldn’t wait for football in Park City, the Dallas Cowboys’ skill position players held a training camp in Park City on Thursday and Friday.
Some of the Cowboys’ quarterbacks, receivers, tight ends and running backs trained at the North 40 Playing Fields next to the PC Hill trailhead.
The camp was organized by Cowboys star quarterback Dak Prescott, as it is each summer. It moves around to new locations and is always held before the team’s official training camp, which opens July 29, a weeks long ramp up to the season where the roster is cut from 90 to 53 players. Prescott was joined by the team’s top wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, wide receiver George Pickens and tight end Jake Ferguson, among others.
The skill players’ representatives coordinated the camp with Park City and Park City School District officials. The high school’s football team has been practicing on the North 40 Playing Fields this summer as Dozier Field undergoes renovations.
“Everybody was really welcoming to the idea of hosting these guys,” said Park City High School Head Football Coach Dennis Cunningham. “The administration supported us and the city supported us in getting our normal high school field outfitted with some markings that worked for the NFL (players and field dimensions).”
Cunningham said the Cowboys were extremely locked in on the field, even as crowds gathered a bit on Friday as word spread of their practice on Thursday. Afterwards, the players took time to pose for photos and sign autographs. The players also held meetings and did various team building activities.
“They took advantage of being in Park City,” Cunningham said. “They did Park City stuff: they went fly fishing on the Provo, got out on the Jordanelle, went and played golf and went to dinner around Park City. They had a great experience.”
Cunningham said he would happily host the Cowboys again if they wanted to come back. He interacted with the team as they got their work done on the North 40 Playing Fields and in the gym at the high school. He will use the experience of watching the Cowboys’ tireless work and uplifting attitudes toward each other to coach up his high school players before their season starts.
“We’ll start talking about it on Tuesday,” Cunningham said. “There’s never enough time to get everything done, and so I’m always thinking about how I can be more efficient in a drill to get more reps for my guys. I took a video that I’m going to show to my guys and say, ‘Look, this is what we’re trying to get done.’”
Cunningham said the Cowboys maximize practices through individual warmups, sprinting at the end of routes and doing conditioning work to close sessions. He added that when a player isn’t strong in a drill they all rally behind him because they know uplifting one player will make the team better. Cunningham believes the Cowboys benefited from some altitude training and also the quiet pace of Park City, where they weren’t swarmed by fans and distracted too easily.
“If they go someplace and there’s 1,000 people standing outside, that is hard for them,” Cunningham said. “They come to Park City, get their work done and then they can get out and float on the Provo, get on Jordannelle or go golfing. That was cool for them.”
