It was the opening day of training camp. Not the official opening—that had taken place the day before, with routine meetings, room assignments, and the distribution of playbooks and equipment. This was the real opening of camp, when Chuck Noll and his coaching staff would toss out “the raw meat to find who’s hungriest.” Thousands of fans made the pilgrimage out to Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, about an hour east of Pittsburgh. The cars snaked down Route 30 and parked in a cornfield, the faithful walking the last mile to the tiny Benedictine school. They had turned out not only for practice but for one particular drill, a bloody annual rite so notorious that it had two names. Noll, always bland and officious, used its more decorous name: the Oklahoma drill, said to derive from its origins at the University of Oklahoma under Bud Wilkinson. But others had a more descriptive name that seemed closer to its essence: the Nutcracker. Its champions included Vince Lombardi, who viewed it as nothing less than a test of manhood.