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Archie Manning still remembers his first visit to Nicholls State University, the site of the annual Manning Passing Academy for going on 10 years.
It was almost 40 years ago when the New Orleans Saints held their 1975 training camp at Nicholls that Manning, then in his fifth year with the NFL franchise, got his first real look at the Thibodaux campus.
Flash-forward some 25 years later, and the Saints returned to Nicholls to host its training camp from 2000-2002. Manning was there for that, too, and it was around that time that he got the idea to move his annual football camp, which began in 1996, to Thibodaux. The school and the community, he said, adopted him as one of their own.
Now, almost a decade later, the marriage between the Mannings and the Thibodaux community, in particular Nicholls, is still going strong.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years, but it’s been a great trip for us,” said Manning, the former Saints quarterback who spent 11 years with the team and who earlier this year celebrated his 65th birthday. “We had a real good experience at Tulane and a great experience in Hammond at Southeastern Louisiana (before Nicholls), but we moved here and it always comes back to one thing: it’s the people.”
Manning had other reasons – practical ones – for moving his camp to Thibodaux, of course.
With open fields and lush grass that reach practically as far as the eye can see, Nicholls’ campus provides a logical and natural home for the kind of hands-on tutelage the Manning’s provide to members of their camp. (It didn’t hurt that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced last year $1.2 million in appropriations to maintain and improve the 20-acre plot that hosts the camp.)
The Manning’s and their camp counselors work with young players – from those going into their eighth-grade season in Junior High to those entering their senior year of high school. The goal is to hone and develop their skills, but it’s not just quarterbacks that are welcome at the camp. Running backs, receivers and tight ends are all on hand as well.
Campers arrive from all over the country, even some as far away as Canada, and spend four days learning from camp counselors, which this year includes reigning Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston of defending national champion Florida State, Oregon’s Marcus Mariota, Baylor’s Bryce Petty and Cincinnati’s Gunner Kiel, among others.
Those college quarterbacks, in turn, often get to shadow two of the NFL’s most well-known and accomplished stars: Peyton and Eli Manning, both of whom are annual fixtures at the camp.
Peyton Manning said he looks forward to the camp every year and enjoys meeting both the quarterbacks of big-time college programs like Winston and Mariota and the younger players he gets to tutor.
“It’s fun for me to keep up with the college quarterbacks, to watch them in their junior and senior year, to get to know them as they come into pro football, and feel like I have a relationship with them,” he said. “Then being around the high school kids, it makes me feel older every year. I ask these kids when they were born, and some of them really make me feel old. At the same time, it’s a great reminder right before (NFL) training camp of how lucky I feel to still be playing football.”
The Manning’s aren’t the only ones who enjoy the annual trek to Thibodaux.
The college quarterbacks who serve as camp counselors and range from most every power conference say they enjoy the area and the warm-up it provides before the start of fall football camps at their respective schools.
“I love coming down here and representing my school and the Manning family, and meeting all these guys and different quarterbacks from across the country. It’s an awesome time,” said Mississippi quarterback Bo Wallace, a second-year counselor at the camp. “I think everybody is just ready for (fall) camp after this. Once that rolls around, you know the season is coming because those days just fly by.”
Mariota has been to the camp for the past two years as well and said the hospitality Nicholls and the surrounding community provides is second to none. Mariota’s team faced Nicholls in the season opener for both schools last season, and to Mariota, it was unique to see where the Colonels play their home games after hosting the Southland team at Autzen Stadium last year.
“It’s an awesome place,” Mariota said of Nicholls. “The people are good people, very nice. They give out so much hospitality. They’ve been nothing but the best when we come visit. It was kind of funny because last year before we played them, I was out here (for the Manning Camp) for that, too, so I got to meet some of the coaches and I have a good relationship with the head coach. It’s been a great deal and they’ve been nothing but the nicest people. It’s been a blessing to be a part of this.”
After 10 years here, one thing is certain. Each July, the Manning Passing Academy arrives in town as the biggest sporting event of the summer in all of Southeast Louisiana – almost an annual rite of passage for football-crazed fans and campers alike, a reminder that the season for pro, college and high school is getting closer and closer. And each year, it keeps rolling right along.
Archie Manning estimated that as many as 1,200 campers were in attendance at this year’s camp, with approximately 120 coaches and 35 to 40 college quarterbacks on hand as well.
As long as the hospitality stays the same, expect the Mannings and the mass crowd that accompanies them to stay right where they are each summer for four days in July.
“We’re just surrounded by good people and good fellowship here,” Archie Manning said. “Nicholls State and the whole community, the whole area, they make us feel welcome. They go over backwards and see if we can run this camp and make it successful. We continue to grow and continue to have good people, and that starts with Nicholls State.”
The Manning Passing Academy rolled through Thibodaux this week for the 10th-straight year. Pictured from left are New Orleans Saints legend Archie Manning, Nicholls State University Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Services Dr. Eugene Dial, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning and his older brother, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. The Manning family touts that it had another successful week in Lafourche Parish, adding that they plan to come back here into the future.
