Training camp is almost here, and for the Steelers, that means another summer back in Latrobe at Saint Vincent College. For Bud Dupree, though, the setup has never been much of a selling point.
On Cam Heyward’s “Not Just Football” podcast, the former Steelers edge rusher didn’t hold back when the conversation turned to camp life in the dorms.
“Nah, they still go to Latrobe?” Dupree asked Heyward.
“The best training camp we had was the COVID year. We stayed at our own house.
I hated the dorms. I hated it.”
Heyward, who has lived through plenty of those Latrobe summers himself, backed up that sentiment. He pointed to the COVID year as a time when the team was trying to make a run and, in his words, hoped that success might change the routine.
“The COVID year, we were trying so hard to win a Super Bowl so then we could tell Mr. Rooney and be like, Mr.
Rooney, we won a Super Bowl, we don’t need to go back to Latrobe,” Heyward said. “It did not work out in that way.
We were back in Latrobe the next year.”
That’s the striking part here: it wasn’t just Dupree taking a shot at the dorm setup. Hearing Heyward echo the same frustration gives the whole thing extra weight.
The Steelers have been holding camp at Saint Vincent College since 1966, and the players still live in college dorms for the duration. It’s part of what makes Steelers camp different from what many other NFL teams do.
And make no mistake, camp in Latrobe is no vacation. August is a grind, and the Steelers usually treat it that way. The difference is that the dorm life takes away some of the freedom players might have if they were staying at home during camp, the way many of them do once the regular season starts.
Pittsburgh moving camp somewhere else seems hard to picture. But with both a former player and one of the team’s longest-tenured leaders speaking so plainly about it, the Latrobe setup got a rare, blunt review.
In Other News...
Why Steelers Fans Suddenly Believe This New Era Could Change Everything
The Steelers are entering a different kind of offseason conversation now that the coaching staff has been reshaped around Mike McCarthy and Patrick Graham. For a fan base that has spent years measuring every move against stability, the appeal is obvious: a fresh voice on the sideline, a new direction on defense, and the sense that the roster could be organized with a more modern, aggressive plan in mind.
Pittsburghs optimism is being fueled by the idea that the changes could pay off on both sides of the ball, with the defense expected to look sharper under Graham and the offense drawing plenty of attention as the pieces come together. The bigger question is whether those changes can actually translate into the kind of leap people around the team are already starting to imagine, because the ceiling being discussed now is far higher than what Steelers fans have been used to hearing. [Read more 🡒]
Ryan Clark Unleashed On ESPN After Stunning Exit
Ryan Clarks exit from ESPN landed with extra force in Pittsburgh, where he remains one of the more recognizable former Steelers voices in national media. The longtime analyst had spent more than a decade at the network and was a regular on NFL programming, so his departure was notable even before he started talking publicly about how it happened.
Clark has since pushed back on the way the move was described, saying on his podcast that he was fired and suggesting there was more going on behind the scenes than a standard round of layoffs. For Steelers fans who followed his post-playing career closely, the bigger question now is what comes next for one of the franchises most outspoken alumni in the NFL media space. [Read more 🡒]
Steelers Just Got A New Reason To Worry About Joey Porter Jr
The Steelers have another cornerback-market development to keep an eye on as they work through the long-term picture with Joey Porter Jr. Christian Gonzalez is in the same draft class as Porter and has quickly become one of the leagues most promising young cover men, which already made him a useful benchmark for any extension talks involving Pittsburghs own rising defender.
Now the Patriots have put a new layer on that conversation by making Gonzalez a contract offer that could reset the top of the position. For the Steelers, that matters because any new standard at cornerback tends to ripple quickly, and Porters camp will have plenty of reason to watch how this plays out as Pittsburgh continues sorting out its next major homegrown deal. [Read more 🡒]