Coy Wire came into training camp last season with high expectations.

During the final week of training camp last year, former Giants coach Jim Fassel gave the players an afternoon off. Instead of practicing, the team bussed to nearby Lake George for an outing that included boating, fishing and a barbeque. It’s safe to say those few hours of fun won’t be repeated this year.
No, an afternoon of lighthearted fun is not on the top of Tom Coughlin’s priority list. The Giants’ new head coach was known for running tough, long and physically-demanding training camps during his eight seasons as the coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. When the Jags were a first-year expansion team in 1995, Coughlin took the team to the University of Wisconsin-Steven’s Point for training camp, the then led the players through four grueling weeks of practice and conditioning.That camp led to many of the stories that have given Coughlin’s public image a hard edge. He counters by saying he has grown in the last nine years, and it’s not fair to judge him on what happened almost a decade ago. But his respect for hard work, discipline and commitment has not wavered, which means training camp for the Giants players will not be a picnic – or an outing to Lake George.The players report to the University at Albany on Thursday and begin two-a-days on Friday. The veterans know it will be tough, but don’t expect it to be unreasonably difficult. And after enduring the 4-12 disaster in 2003, they’re willing to pay the price to turn around their fortunes.“I expect it to be training camp,” said safety Shaun Williams, who is entering his seventh season. “It’s going to be hot, it’s going to be twice a day, there are going to be long meetings, there’s going to be hitting, there’s going to be tackling. It’s going to be training camp. Training camp is never easy.”“I don’t know how much more physically challenging it can be,” split end Amani Toomer said. “We had some pretty tough long camps with our old coach. But there’s a different intensity out there, a different kind of feel. A lot of people are trying to learn a new system and that makes it’ mentally harder. That’s the only thing that’s going to be a big difference. Nobody is going to have that comfort level, knowing the plays and knowing the system.”The players got a taste of Coughlin’s expectations and demands throughout the offseason, both in the conditioning program – which was more challenging than in the past – and during the mini-camps and on-field workouts. Those practices were conducted at a brisk pace, with no wasted time or standing around. Coughlin was quick to correct mistakes and was not hesitant in voicing his displeasure at specific players or position groups.However, those workouts were conducted without pads. In Albany the hitting will start, which will increase the intensity and the pain for the players. But neither the holdovers nor the newcomers brought in from other teams expect anything radically different from what they’ve already endured in the NFL.“From all indications, and everything I’ve seen and the way we practice here, it’s very similar to what I’ve experienced in the past,” said quarterback Kurt Warner, who spent his first six seasons with the St. Louis Rams. “Unless something drastically changes, I don’t foresee that being an issue. But having not been through one of coach Coughlin’s training camps and not knowing what to base it on, other than the mini-camps that we’ve had and the way we practiced, it’s very similar to what I’ve been through in the past.”Warner was asked it St. Louis coach Mike Martz’s training camps were tough.“Tough is all relative,” he said. “It’s fast, uptempo, speed, perfection. To me, that’s not hard, that’s just the way you do it. That’s how you are successful in this league. It’s very similar. We’re not on the field for 2½ hours, were on the field for an hour-and-a-half, an hour and 45 minutes, we’re fast, we’re going from one drill to the next. I guess I don’t look at that as hard, as much as it’s uptempo, fast and trying to get it done right as quickly as possible and playing with speed. Unless something drastically changes, I think it’s going to be very similar to what we had in St. Louis, and what I’m used to.”Running back Tiki Barber, who has spent his entire eight-year career with the Giants, knows camp will be different under Coughlin.“It’s hard to gauge, because I’ve only known one camp, one coach,” Barber said. “Jim would throw us a bone every now and then. I don’t know if we’re getting that this year. I think if something’s on the schedule, it gets done. We’re not going to get a break because Matt Bryant makes a 50-yard field goal – okay, we don’t have to run today. It’s okay. It’s football. And I think it’s on par with his line of thinking – discipline and way of coaching.”Although they know Coughlin will make the next four weeks extremely difficult for them both physically and mentally, the players are eager to get started and to wipe away the lingering residue from 2003. And they have faith that Coughlin is the man who can do that completely and prepare them for a much brighter 2004.“I’m impressed with his leadership,” Williams said. “He comes out there and you know that he’s focused, you know that he has an idea and a goal in mind and he’s going to take steps to try to achieve it. When he talks to the team he’s a straightforward guy. He’s not going to sugarcoat anything. He’s going to shoot straight from the hip and tell you how he feels and tell you what he means. That’s a good thing and you have to respect that.”“I have confidence in our new coach,” Toomer said. “I think he’s going to be good for our team. I think our team is going to benefit from it in the long run. The older you get, the fewer chances you have to win the championship. I feel that with the coach we have now, we have a great opportunity to win a championship and be really competitive this year.”But to do that, they must first get through a highly-competitive camp.“The whole image he has for the team is to raise the standards of everybody around here, and you can’t complain about that,” Toomer said. “I feel like we’re going to be a much better team because of it. We went 4-12 last year and I’ll do anything not to be 4-12 again. So it doesn’t matter to me.”

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