Miami Dolphins training center videos as team moves from Davie

The Miami Dolphins are moving and moving day arrived today when a truck pulled up to the Dolphins training facility at Nova Southeastern University.

Trucks loaded with the Dolphins’ belongings will trek across town to Miami Gardens where they will unload at the Miami Dolphins’ new super-training facility on the grounds of Hard Rock Stadium. There are a lot of memories at the old facility and I have been lucky enough to be a part of that facility.

I first went to the facility in 2007 when Cam Cameron was the Dolphins coach for his singular season. A guest of the Dolphins at was once called Web Weekend, myself and other fansites attended the annual events held at the Dolphins training center.

Those events often took us on a tour of the locker rooms and over the years, the locker room changed as much as the nameplates on the locker themselves. In that first year for me, I remember sitting next to long-time team photographer Dave Cross in the dining room. He and his lovely wife told me stories from the Dolphins history that for him dated back to a Super Bowl ring in the 70s.

In the front foyer, high above the security desk once stood the Dolphins two Lombardi Trophies. Eventually moving into a plexiglass case on the floor of the entrance.

Walking into the training center was always fun. The wall decorations changed each year and the images down the corridors did as well. One year, we got to tour the upper floors where we got to see the coach’s offices and the general managers. The NFL Draft war room and some of the offices of the Dolphins staff members.

We walked onto the practice field and into the practice bubble where we met players and coaches and saw things that most fans would never get to see and cap our evening sitting in the main team meeting room where Q&A sessions with Jeff Ireland, Mike Tannenbaum, Tony Sparano, Tom Garfinkel, and even Nick Saban took place. We were invited into the Dolphins world and into the facility that was home to the players.

We saw pictures of their families in their lockers, personal images, and motivational pinups. We saw their sense of humor and they become people with lives away from football.

Those trips around the practice facility came to end a couple of years ago as we transitioned those events into something else and it is unclear if not unlikely that there will ever be an event at the new facility in Miami Gardens. Still, it will be sad to see the closure of the Davie facility but the memories remain as do the incredible thank yous to the member of the Dolphins staff who made the last 15 years incredible for many of us who have written about the team in that time.

Some personal favorite memories? Here are my top 5!

Dan Campbell scares the hell out of me.

We met Dan Campbell during this stint as the Dolphins interim head coach. He had one game under his belt and I asked him about getting his team prepared and motivated after Joe Philbin was replaced. Campbell is an imposing man, and he didn’t take my question as it was meant and instead, got a little bitter and came up to me who at that moment wished I wouldn’t have sat in the front row.

Campbell started by telling me, “I’m tired of people talking bad about Philbin. He is a really good guy and you guys need to stop”. The tone in his voice made me want to crawl into a corner.

Tony Sparano scares the hell out of someone else.

Tony Sparano was awesome, even in his final year but no one will forget the first time we met him. He walked into the team meeting room dressed in a gold suit. He had a strong Italian attitude and walked up to the front of the room and simply said, “What do you want?” One of the members of another site simply said, “I think you are scaring the hell out of me” and Sparano looked at him and without so much as a smile, said, “Good”.

Sparano was always inviting and it really broke any tension. He was always gracious with his time and with us, even during the tumultuous times in his final year.

Watching the “Perfect Season Special with someone very special

A local TV station produced a 1972 perfect season special and our group of fansites got an early viewing of it and we were joined by Jim Kiick to watch a portion of the film. There was nothing better than to listen to him make remarks about the season while watching the preview of the film. He would spend a good part of that evening talking to us about his career with the Dolphins and even the departure with Csonka and Warfield. It was a special time for all of us. His humor was still infectious despite his failing health.

An unexpected yet personal gift from Scott Stone

Web Weekends was born in the brain of Scott Stone who handled the relations between the Dolphins and the fansites. He organized the events and brought us all closer to the team. During one event, my brother who had attended several events with me was deployed in Afghanistan and missed that year’s Web Weekend.

At the end of the evening, Scott called me and the members of my family who were there and presented us with an enlarged picture of my brother standing in front of his humvee with the Dolphins flag draped in front of it. The picture was signed by Ricky Williams, Jason Taylor, Zach Thomas, Ronnie Brown, and Tony Sparano. We would later present it to him at a family gathering welcoming him home but it really showed how much appreciation the Dolphins and Scott had for the websites. Two years later he would redeploy but this time he would bring back flags that flew over the base and we would present those to Scott and another member of the staff.

A phone call that was worth a million memories

One of the biggest supporters of the Web Weekend events was former Dolphins President and COO Bryan Wiedmeier. Wiedmeier made it a point to attend portions of the Web Weekend events and he took the time to get to know many of us personally. He knew of my brother’s deployment and knew of contributions being made to communities by sites like DolfansNYC. He was involved and supported Scott in his efforts.

In 2010, Wiedmeier would leave Miami for a job as Executive VP of the Browns. Wiedemeir enjoyed the Web Weekend events so much that he called us during one event after he left and chatted with us for a short while. He had just been diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer and it would be for most, if not all of us, the last time we would talk to him. Wiedemeier would pass in 2016 but his support for all of our sites was incredible.

Through the years of attending events at that facility, I found an extended family from the Shed Dawgs in Newfoundland, to the Two Michelles and DolfansNYC, DolphinsTalk, and another brother, Steve Pollak and so many more that I can’t name. In a way, like the players, we all grew together in that facility from year to year thanks to Scott Stone and they are relationships that still carry on today.

It’s not clear what that facility will become after the Dolphins leave but I doubt it will ever carry as many memories for so many people.