The rookie coach who fumbled his first Big Ten speaking gig devised a novel way to poke fun at himself.
DeShaun Foster stepped in front of reporters Wednesday morning wearing a custom black T-shirt bearing a blue outline of California with a UCLA football helmet positioned over the school’s spot on the map alongside the words, “We’re in L.A.”
That was the phrase that had made Foster a media-day meme in Indianapolis last week when he stumbled over his opening monologue. A week later, as his team opened training camp ahead of his debut season, Foster made sure he was in on the joke.
“I’m gonna embrace it,” Foster told an unusually large gathering of reporters and UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond, the latter eager to learn what the biggest hire of his four years on the job had to say. “It was funny to me … all the interviews after that, I killed it. You guys know me, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
The shirt was part of a jaunty vibe that helped Foster settle into the rhythm of fall camp after a largely sleepless night in anticipation of a new version of a familiar experience. He had attended UCLA’s camp as a high school recruit, a Bruins running back, a volunteer assistant, a graduate assistant, a director of player development and a running backs coach but never as the guy in charge.
Foster awoke around 4:30 a.m., departed his San Fernando Valley home about 20 minutes later and even got in a workout at the team’s practice facility before walking onto the field before 8 a.m.
“I was just excited,” Foster said of his emotions. “It’s the first day of camp. It’s the same feeling like I was playing, a little bit, just without the contact.”
Foster’s players noticed that he was one of the first people in the building, ensuring that his pillars of discipline, respect and enthusiasm did not comprise just an empty catchphrase. Linebacker Kain Medrano said it’s the sort of thing that will make the Bruins keep mental tabs on who’s the first player onto the practice field and the last one off after slogging through an extra workout.
“It’s lessons of life,” Medrano said of the unspoken message, “to be early and not to be late and show respect to the game.”
During the first of 20 scheduled camp sessions in preparation for the season opener at Hawaii on Aug. 31, the new boss watched his players go through the usual preseason drills for about two hours.
Quarterbacks dropped back, one after another, focusing on their footwork before throwing passes into the end zone. Defensive linemen accelerated toward a staffer wearing blue pads on his arms, knocking the pads away before racing past him. Defensive backs shadowed each other on simulated passing routes, one raising an arm to defend an imaginary football.
Long after it all ended, players boarded buses bound for their camp digs … in Woodland Hills. They’re being put up in a hotel there to forge camaraderie as opposed to socializing only with roommates and friends had they lodged in the familiar confines of campus.
“It’s an NFL model, really,” Foster said. “Let’s isolate ourselves and come together and become a team and then break out and let the world know.”
The Bruins won’t need one of their coach’s T-shirts to figure out how to get back to campus, but several players told him they wanted one anyway as a tribute to making the most out of any situation.
“You just kind of got to bounce back and go from there, and we support our coach 110%,” Medrano said. “What happens on the football field is what we’re worried about.”
Etc.
Foster said Jalen Berger, a transfer running back from Michigan State, was being limited in practice as he rounded into form. Defensive lineman Gary Smith III also remained sidelined as part of his recovery from a broken ankle, but fullback Anthony Adkins returned from the knee injury he sustained during spring practice. … Foster said he was “fired up” to bring Corey Miller, the team’s new performance coach, back to UCLA after Miller had been the Bruins’ director of speed and movement during the 2022 season. Miller spent last season as assistant director of strength and conditioning for the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. … The Bruins have awarded No. 36 to redshirt senior defensive back Joshua Swift as a tribute to the late Nick Pasquale for being the team’s most inspirational walk-on. “Swift is just a guy that he’s the same guy every day, he’s somebody that most of the players respect, they love him,” Foster said, “and it’s not because he’s a great football player, it’s because he does things the right way.”
