By the time you’re close enough to smell the fresh-cut grass of the practice fields nestled in the trees behind the stadium at Wofford College in Spartanburg, you’re dripping with sweat.

When the Carolina Panthers players pull on their helmets and put a hand on the turf, they’re already so consumed by the humidity that the grass sticks to their knuckles. And it mixes with the dirt and the Gatorade pumped with extra electrolytes, and sometimes with blood.

And NFL training camp is not glamorous.

But it’s an equalizer.

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