HAUGHTON, LA — A month before training camp, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott hit the reset button Tuesday at his eponymous camp at Haughton High School.
The 24-year-old starting quarterback threw his second annual football camp with ProCamps. He, along with area high school coaches, not only helped campers grades first through eighth have a great time learning football fundamentals, but the Pro Bowler also found balance.
"It's most definitely needed for balance," Prescott said on coming back to his hometown to host the camp. "It's a sense of rejuvenation. It's a restart. It's humbling, as I said, to see all the same buildings, to see your middle school coach coming back and working a camp for you.
Prescott held the camp on the very field where he was the starting quarterback for the Haughton Buccaneers, which made him sentimental.
Said Prescott: "I don't know if it's age, but I almost get emotional talking about things like that because it's a blessing, as I said, to be a little kid when I was their age wanting to do this. Now, I'm doing it. It's crazy."
The 2016 NFL Rookie of the Year, an effort he earned as he led Dallas to a 13-3 season, finds Buccaneers home field memorable for off-field reasons. This is also the place he spent time with his mother, Peggy, watching his older brothers play football. Prescott knows his mother would be overjoyed to see her son hold a camp on that very gridiron.
"She would be proud," Prescott said. "My mom is someone who always told me when she was proud. And just as you say that, my mom always had the same seat coming into these games and it's special to be back, to be back to a place like this, where as I said, grew up watching. I grew up in the stands sitting next to my mom watching my older brothers play, itching to get on the field to actually coming out here and made a ton of memories."
Last year, Prescott held the camp and the Cowboys had a tumultuous season. The NFL suspended All-Pro running back Ezekiel Elliott for six games during the preseason, but appeals and delays made it to where he did not serve until the middle of the season. Ultimately, Dallas finished 9-7 with Prescott shouldering a majority of the offensive burden.
Should similar adversity hit Prescott this year, he will remember the rough times as a Buccaneer when he is leading the Cowboys.
"Just to be able to have this, have where I was grounded to be in the back of my mind, as I said, to be able to come and pull something from it," Prescott said. "I'll carry it forward into the season. I think about moments in high school. I think about having the teammates that I had in high school and thinking about making the relationship the same in the NFL."
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