CUA Hosts Arizona Cardinals: NFL Team Makes DuFour Their Nest to Avoid Flight Home

By John Meehan for The Tower

As it has done for each week of the fall football season since its opening in 1985, the Raymond A. Dufour Athletic Center played host to a gridiron cast of Cardinals for five days worth of practice this week. This week, however, the Cardinals taking the field weren’t from CUA — they were from Arizona.

After suffering a 24-17 loss to the Washington Redskins at nearby FedEx Field in Landover, Md. late on Sunday afternoon, the NFL‘s Arizona Cardinals spent the past week preparing for their next game by training at the DuFour Center. To ensure a closed practice, the fence along the perimeter of the DuFour fields were covered by a blue tarp, and the DuFour center facilities were closed to students during team practice hours for most of the week.

Though the Cardinals opened their season with an impressive 2-0 record after besting two teams while playing in their native western time zone (opening the season with a 23-13 win against the San Francisco 49ers in California, and then besting the Miami Dolphins 31-10 while at home in Arizona), last week’s jet-lagged loss to the Washington Redskins served as a painful reminder that cross country travel has proven disastrous for this Arizona-based franchise. Since 2003, the Cardinals have gone 2-15 while playing games in the Eastern Time zone.

This Sunday, the Arizona Cardinals will square off against the New York Jets at the Meadowlands, and so the decision was made to keep the team on the east coast. “It is really a unique circumstance where we have back-to-back road games on the east coast,” said Mark Dalton, Arizona Cardinals’ vice president of media relations. “Being one of the [NFL] teams that are from so far west, there are inherent challenges every time you travel east. There’s a certain amount of physical stress and recovery time that you have to do whenever you travel across the country, and a big part of our preparation as a team is maintaining a sense of routine and some normalcy. When you put it all together, this was really the best option for us.”

Dalton believes that his team’s stay on the east coast should result in huge dividends in Sunday’s game against the New York Jets. “We came in [to the east coast] last Friday before the Redskins game, and we didn’t have much time to acclimate to the change in time zone or to modify our practice schedule.” The Cardinals spent a full week in Washington before catching a short train ride on Saturday afternoon to New York. The Cardinals look to go into Sunday’s game against the New York Jets well-rested and settled comfortably into their east coast training regimen.

The veterans on the Cardinal football roster seem to share in Dalton’s optimism. “I was talking with [Arizona quarterback, former Super Bowl MVP award-winner, and two-time NFL Most Valuable Player] Kurt Warner yesterday,” Dalton said, “and [Warner] said that he believes the team will feel the benefits most on Thursday, Friday and Saturday — which puts us exactly where we need to be for Sunday’s game.” Dalton noted that their opponents, however, may not be so fortunate. The New York Jets, whose record fell to 1-2 after dropping a Monday night road game to the San Diego Chargers, come into this Sunday’s game both with a shortened week of practice time and with a 6000-mile flight to disrupt their usual schedule. “The Jets will have to battle the same logistics that we’re usually accustomed to facing,” said Dalton. “We’ve spent more time on the east coast this week than they have, which could be a major advantage.”

A second crucial advantage the Arizona Cardinals will have in Sunday’s game is that they have spent the week practicing on the University’s newly renovated football field, which is constructed using a state-of-the-art synthetic material known as “FieldTurf” — a playing surface that is virtually identical to the artificial field the Cardinals will encounter when they face the Jets at Giants Stadium this coming Sunday afternoon.

Dalton said that the Arizona Cardinals rented and made use of all of the DuFour Center’s amenities and were very impressed. “The field is phenomenal, and the facilities are great. Catholic University has been extremely gracious and [University Athletic Director] Mike Allen and his entire staff have absolutely bent over backwards to accommodate us,” said Dalton.

In Allen’s estimation, the Arizona Cardinal’s workout on University premises is a testament to the quality of the newly refurbished DuFour Center facilities — which he said have previously been used by NBA’s Seattle Supersonics basketball team, among others. “[These players] are clearly bigger guys, and I’m pretty sure they worked out using every single weight in our gym.” Allen was “very happy” with the Arizona Cardinals visit to the University, saying that team were “great guests” during their stay. Allen believes that the week’s practices will serve as a powerful recruiting tool in attracting new student athletes to CUA for years to come.

The University football field was resurfaced in 2006 as part of Phase I of the Competitive Edge Campaign for Cardinal Athletics — a comprehensive alumni giving campaign spearheaded by former Athletic Director Bob Talbot, the first phase of which raised more than $1.8 million for the renovation of the University’s athletic facilities. Phase II of the Competitive Edge fundraising campaign — which is currently ongoing — calls for building new men’s and women’s locker rooms, as well as a new reception area that will be used to host fundraising events, alumni gatherings, and information sessions for prospective student athletes.

This week’s practices at the DuFour Center are not the first time that the Arizona Cardinals and Catholic University have crossed paths. University alumnus Michael J. Bidwill, J.D. 1981, is general counsel and president for the Arizona Cardinals organization. He also serves on the NFL’s Business Ventures Committee.

As president of the Cardinals, Bidwill spearheaded the development of a new stadium for the franchise, the University of Phoenix stadium, which opened in 2006 and has been recognized by BuisnessWeek magazine as one of the top 10 athletic facilities in the world. In February of this year, this acclaimed new venue played host to Super Bowl XLII.

Bidwill is one of several University graduates who currently serves in such a high-ranking front office position with a professional sports franchise. Fellow CUA alumnus Martin R. Hurney, B.A. 1993, is the general manager of the Carolina Panthers, and Brian Cashman, B.A. 1989 is the vice president and general manager of the New York Yankees.

Arizona Cardinals to Work Out at DuFour

The Arizona Cardinals will be staying in D.C. for the week and will be working out at the University after their game against the Washington Redskins this Sunday.
The Arizona Cardinals are currently 2-0 for the first time in 17 years. In an Associated Press article, Head Coach Ken Whisenhunt explained his decision to keep the team on the East Coast. “We’re trying to put this team in the best position that we feel can give us a chance to win. We feel like this does that for us, staying on the East Coast.”

Thus far, the Arizona Cardinals have defeated the San Francisco 49ers and the Miami Dolphins. After playing the Washington Redskins, the Cardinals will move up the coast to play the New York Jets on September 28.