Peterson’s camp offers refund, apology

The organizers of the Adrian Peterson’s football camp offered an apology and a full refund since Peterson won’t be able to attend.

Adrian Peterson really needs to hire a personal day planner.

A year ago, he got the ire of then-head coach Brad Childress when it turned out that the Vikings’ mandatory minicamp conflicted with Adrian Peterson Day in his hometown of Palestine, Texas. He claimed a lack of knowledge of a scheduling conflict, choosing to ride in an open limousine in Texas – historically, a sketchy proposition – rather than appear at minicamp.

A year later, even without a minicamp as a potential conflict, Peterson finds himself in some public relations hot water. Peterson has lent his name to a youth football camp in Norman, Okla., where “All Day” became a national star playing for the Sooners. That camp is going on today and Friday. Peterson won’t be there.

Peterson hosted camps last week in both Palestine and Tyler, Texas, but, in a statement to the Associated Press, said that ProCamps Worldwide misunderstood his schedule and said he was never going to be able to make the dates the company had scheduled.

In a public mea culpa, ProCamps Worldwide fell on its sword, releasing a statement in which the company took “full responsibility” for the scheduling gaffe. The company retracted an earlier statement claiming Peterson couldn’t attend the camp because he will be attending a taping of the final episode of NFL Network’s countdown of the top 100 players in the league for the 2011 season.

It turns out that appearance won’t happen until July 3, which could raise the suspicion of conspiracy theorists about the timing of the scheduled appearance. No current player has appeared on an NFL Network show since the work stoppage began in March.

The company has offered full refunds (plus swag) and has gone to great lengths to take the blame for the scheduling snafu. In the era of news immediacy, the first reports were throwing blame Peterson’s way. Within a matter of hours, not only did ProCamps Worldwide take Peterson off they hook, it jumped on the live grenade.

In the space of a few hours, Peterson went from hero to villain back to hero with a busy schedule. A sign of the times? Maybe. But Peterson needs to hire a point person to make sure his schedule is on point and disseminated among those who need to know. Once is a mix-up. Twice is the start of a trend.

THURSDAY NOTES

The rumor mills are dialing up with the expectation of free agency coming in short order if the new CBA can reached in the next week or two as to where the free-agent class is going to land. Sidney Rice and Ray Edwards are likely to get big offers to move on, but it begs the question as to whether the rescheduling of Edwards’ second professional boxing match, which was initially scheduled for tomorrow, will ever happen? It is all but certain that Edwards will likely have a contract clause that will prohibit him from boxing if he signs a long-term deal.

A sign of the times came last night when, on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs did a cameo in which he speared an annoying background fan. He was wearing a football jersey with his name and “trademark” No. 55. However, the yellow and blue jersey he was forced to wear could in no way be construed as a Ravens jersey. That was the point. Players can’t wear the jersey of their employers until they are employees again.

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John Holler has been writing about the Vikings for more than a decade for Viking Update. Follow Viking Update on Twitter and discuss this topic on our message boards. To become a subscriber to the Viking Update web site or magazine, click here.

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