Locker-room focus shifts to class

Welcome Week is a busy week for the UCLA football players, too.

UCLA classes resume this week, three games and four weeks into the football team’s regular season. Players and coaches said it will be an adjustment that helps them get into a rhythm heading into the conference season.

The Bruins reported to camp in early August. The next eight weeks were all about football.

“There are some tremendous positives to it early because you get to really put your football in ““ you’re not dealing with class and all that other stuff,” coach Rick Neuheisel said.

Everything changes for the football players once classes begin. That’s when being on the team really starts to feel like a full-time job, wide receiver Terrence Austin said.

“You have to find time just to rest,” Austin said. “Most of the time it’s either football or homework.”

Austin said that it’s even more important for athletes to stay on top of their class work because of the constant demands of practice and the increased workload at the end of each quarter.

“You’ve got to be ready when those 20-page papers start coming around,” he said.

During fall camp, all the players lived in De Neve Fir, but, like the rest of the students living on the Hill, they moved into their dorm rooms or apartments last weekend.

UCLA’s first two opponents ““ Tennessee and Brigham Young ““ started classes much earlier. Instruction began at BYU on Sept. 2 and at Tennessee on Aug. 20.

Most of the Pac-10 teams also start classes before the season begins. Stanford and Washington, though, use the quarter system, like UCLA.

The Bruins’ schedule was especially slow when UCLA had a bye week after its Tennessee game.

Defensive tackle Brian Price said it felt like fall camp all over again. And even though the team improves a lot over bye weeks, Price would rather play every Saturday.

Neuheisel said he was very happy the team did not have another off week before the start of school. He added that the busy weeks ahead ““ the Bruins play five straight weeks ““ will only help his team.

“We’ll get into a rhythm,” Neuheisel said. “Our guys will get back to being college students.”

Once classes start, players will wake up even earlier for morning workouts. The team usually practices for two hours on Monday through Thursday.

For Price, that quicker pace is a good thing. He said that it always feels like his life revolves around football, but that he also relishes the academic environment at UCLA.

On one of the Bruins’ days off after the BYU game, Price went to purchase his textbooks and talk to his professors.

He also said he likes the football team’s tutoring program.

Apparently, his intense approach to football translates to the classroom.

“Win games and get As,” Price said. “That’s what I came here to do.”

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