Texans travel to West Virginia to The Greenbrier for cooler climate, and to build camaraderie with remote practices

HOUSTON – For the third time in franchise history, the Texans are heading to West Virginia for a portion of training camp.

The Texans last trained at The Greenbrier and its sports performance center in 2018 and 2017 under former coach Bill O’Brien.

Now, the Texans return to White Sulpher Springs, West Virginia for practices Monday through Thursday in advance of their Saturday preseason game on the road against the Minnesota Vikings before returning to Houston.

Getting a break from the oppressive Texas heat in a much cooler climate and benefiting from a nice training facility that has also hosted the Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers, the Texans are looking forward to the trip north.

“For us, going to West Virginia for the next week, will be an opportunity to, first and foremost, get away from this heat here in Houston and be able to actually practice and focus on truly ball and getting better and not just surviving in the heat,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said Saturday after the defending AFC South champions’ practice session. “By doing that, hopefully we can also get our team closer connected. It’s a new team. We have to grow together. We have to remain connected [and] get to know each other even better. We’ll have the opportunities to do that there in West Virginia.”

A year ago, the Texans practiced remotely in Cleveland at Nick Caserio’s high school following the Pro Football Hall of Fame game against the Chicago Bears. They played their second preseason game at the Pittsburgh Steelers, remaining in the region before returning to Texas.

“Once you get a group of guys together and you find things in common, you find things that are different about each other and you build that bond and that team chemistry,” Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud said. “So, I think it’s going to be good for us.”

Making the investment in going to The Greenbrier, which has a 55,00 square foot training facility, two grass fields, a FieldTurf field, meeting rooms, offices, weight room, hydrotherapy room, equipment rooms and more is not an inexpensive undertaking. Ryans expressed his appreciation for Texans principal owner Cal McNair and foundation vice president Hannah McNair for making this possible.

“First and foremost, for us to be able to take our camp to a remote place I want to thank Cal and Hannah [McNair] for allowing us to do this,” Ryans said. “It starts from ownership and their willingness to allow us to do it. So, big thanks to them. There’s a lot of work that goes in behind the scenes. Our operations staff has done a great job of planning and prepping for us to have a seamless trip. We have one of the best staffs.”

Ryans has been the The Greenbrier before when he was with the 49ers.

“What I like about going to The Greenbrier is you get to really have a really nice facility there,” Ryans said. “It’s very convenient when it comes to football operations. Everything is in one building, and you have the fields right there where the guys can get dressed, walk right out to the fields and get to work on their craft. So, I really love the setup and the convenience of The Greenbrier and that’s the main reason why we’re going.”

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com