SOUTHLAKE, Texas — Training camp is approaching fast for Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys, as Tuesday marks the two-week mark before the team heads off for Oxnard to begin the preparation around their 2024 campaign. But even in the final few days of the offseason, Prescott was at Carroll Senior High School on Tuesday morning giving back to the community with his annual youth camp serving first through eighth grade students.
It's not his first youth camp, as it's become a ritual of his in early July to spend time with the youth and teach them some football along the way. Even for him, it's an opportunity to be young again despite the busy life his football career has put in front of him.
"I don't think my approach has really changed," Prescott said. "I like to be present wherever I am. When I'm out there, I turn into a kid again. When I go to the eight-year-olds, I'm eight. When I go to the 13, I'm 13…I want to make sure they leave this camp excited and be fulfilled in their purpose that they came for."
In football news, a picture of Prescott vacationing in Mexico last week did the rounds on social media as he was seen wearing a walking boot around his right foot. In his first public addressing of the photo, he attributed it as precautionary for his surgically repaired right ankle that he broke in 2020.
"Honestly, I'm getting older," he said. "Same ankle that I snapped and had a nasty surgery on four years ago, so a couple of hard days of training, you get a little sore. I went on a fishing trip and wanted to protect it so it didn't get worse. Literally, it's absolutely nothing. I'm getting older and having to take care of my body."
Prescott will wrap up his camp on Tuesday and then set his sights on his annual trip with his pass-catching group where they will bond over the weekend and connect before making the trip to Oxnard in a couple of weeks.
"Excited as ever, I had a great offseason," he said. "Excited to get going here in the next couple of days, taking this trip with my receivers and tight ends. Just getting back and getting some work in with them, and that will only expedite my excitement and our process to make sure when we hit camp, we're rolling."
The looming elephant in the room over the entire season is the mass amount of players – and coaches, for that matter – going into the final season of their respective contracts. That doesn't exclude Dak Prescott, who continued his rhetoric around his extension negotiations on Tuesday saying that he is letting it play out with agent, but that once training camp starts, the focus turns to the season.
"There's been conversations back and forth," he said. "But for the most part, I've been letting my agent do that, especially as we get going into training camp. Day one of training camp, my mind flips towards helping my team and doing everything I can within the organization and on the football field to make sure I'm the best and everyone around me is their best. The money and all of that will take care of itself as it always has."
Even despite the headlines around Prescott, Tuesday was a great opportunity for him to re-center and give back to the game itself and his community.
"It's awesome. This is what this game is about."
