A Farewell to One Buc Place

Hat tip to the St Pete Times for a nice piece on One Buc Place, the Buc's training practice since the franchise was founded 30 years ago. A walk down memory lane, Rick Stroud shares some of the best stories involving the run down facility with the Venice Beach-like outdoor workout area.

Security used to be a big issue. One day, a shirtless man entered an unlocked gate near the rear of the facility and walk into the personnel department. Seated around a table was McKay, Jerry Angelo and Tim Ruskell.

"He was driving by and heard on the radio that we had taken the franchise and transition tags off Reggie Cobb and Ricky Reynolds," McKay said. "He wanted to know what the hell we were doing. He was extremely inebriated. After a while, Jerry was getting upset and actually began to physically confront the guy. That led to increased security measures. We put a lock on the gate."

Sand-filled training fields, rat infested offices the size of a closet, a mysterious magnetic wall that made everyone next to it sick, One Buc Place was worse than many Division II training facilities. But, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger right? After all One Buc Place was good enough to propel the Bucs to a Super Bowl victory.