Chicago Bears All-Pros Jay Cutler and Brian Urlacher worked as guest instructors at the William and Mary Colonial All-Pro football camp June 21, each in a manner befitting their offseason.
For Urlacher, the six-time Pro Bowl linebacker going into his tenth season, the experience was a lazy Sunday evening spent playing with the kids and ruminating on topics that went beyond football.
“Today was a great opportunity for me to spread football,” Urlacher said, lounging on a training table in the Jimmye Laycock Football Center. “I think football’s a great game. It’s great camaraderie, you get work ethic and you get to listen to people. There are a lot of great things you get from football.”
Urlacher was spending Father’s Day in Williamsburg, away from his daughters Pamela and Riley with whom he celebrated the holiday the day before.
“We went fishing yesterday. We rented a little boat and went out fishing on a little lake,” Urlacher said. “It’s a big day, it’s Father’s Day. It’s your day to get to be with your kids and to enjoy them.”
The Sunday evening informality differed from Cutler’s Monday morning media session in which the Pro Bowl quarterback recently traded from the Denver Broncos faced the cameras.
The familiarity of the questions and the uniformity of the answers allowed Cutler to check his cell phone as he rolled off his responses.
“I just think it was a conflict of interest,” Cutler said of his relationship with new Broncos coach Josh McDaniels. “I think we both wanted to go our own different directions. I think he probably wanted his own guy in there.
Both Urlacher and Cutler expressed similar excitement not only about the upcoming season, but also about visiting the College.
“It’s a very similar school to Vandy,” Cutler said, referring to Vanderbilt University, where he played for four years. “It’s a kind of a smaller school, but they compete here and that’s what it’s all about.”
Urlacher was impressed by the relatively new Laycock Center.
“I think these are great facilities,” Urlacher said. “Every time I walk into a room it’s nicer than the last one I walked in to.”
Cutler and Urlacher, who attended New Mexico University, are both products of smaller schools. Both expressed admiration for Head Coach Jimmye Laycock and the program he has built at the College.
“It’s about finding kids and getting a good coaching staff, which they have here,” Cutler said. “They can relate to players and get the best out of them and go out and have fun.”
