The Birds will be back in 2012.

The Philadelphia Eagles and Lehigh University today announced that they have signed a contract that will keep Eagles training camp at the school
during the summer of 2012.

Lehigh has been the summer home of the Eagles since 1996.

“I can’t say enough good things about our partnership with Lehigh
University,” said Eagles Chief Operating Officer Don Smolenski.

Today’s announcement was hardly a surprise. The Eagles said they would sign on for a 17th summer at Lehigh as this year’s training camp wrapped up in August.

Training camp dates for next year have yet to be set.

Smolenski noted that Lehigh’s flexibility during the lockout made a real difference for the Eagles.

“During the lockout this past off-season, they really worked well with us as we navigated through the uncertainty of the status of training camp.” he said. “Despite that uncertainty and the accelerated timeline of events, I’m proud to say they provided us with another summer of first-class accommodations.”

Lehigh Athletic Director Joe Sterrett is glad to have the Eagles back.

“We appreciate our partnership with the Eagles, which provides the
Lehigh community with national exposure and positive economic impact,” he said in a news release.

Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Mike Patterson has been taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest after collapsing today at a training camp practice at Lehigh University in Bethlehem.

Patterson is alert and communicative at the hospital after a seizure on the field, Eagles trainer Rick Burkholder said this morning. The seizure lasted four minutes, the trainer said.

“He’s absolutely alert, stable, totally communicating with everybody, even joking a little bit,” Burkholder said. “We won’t speculate what happened to him, other than he had a seizure. It could be anything. We don’t even want to speculate what might have happened.”

Patterson’s agent, JR Ricket, said in a statement that the player is “in no pain and doing well.”

“We are very grateful for everyone’s prayers and support,” he added. “Mike will be back at practice as soon as the doctors clear him.”

Patterson dropped to the ground as offensive and defensive linemen prepared for one-on-one drills this morning, and he began violently shaking. He was immediately tended to by Burkholder and his staff, with assistance from rookie offensive lineman Danny Watkins, a firefighter with EMT training.

“I’ve got to give Rick (Burkholder) and our doctors the credit,” head coach Andy Reid said. “During chaotic situations like that they all remain calm. I’m not a doctor or a trainer. The players aren’t. And that’s one of your toughest guys right there going down, so we were all on edge a little bit and Rick just calmed the situation down.”

As players knelt nearby, holding hands and praying, an ambulance arrived and Patterson was placed on a stretcher and lifted inside the vehicle. Watkins helped lift Patterson into the ambulance.

“You never want to see a teammate go down like that,” Watkins said later. “It’s not an easy thing to see. I’m sure any one of the other guys would have done the same thing (trying to help). My heart goes out to him. He went down and it’s hard to not jump in there and help the guy.”

Reid said he tried to step in as Watkins went to help.

“He wanted to jump right in there and Rick was stabilizing” Patterson, Reid said. “I kind of held him (Watkins) back a little bit, but his first reaction was to dive in.”

A Lehigh Valley Hospital spokesman confirmed Patterson was at the hospital but said all information on his condition must come from the Eagles.

Patterson, 27, was the Eagles’ first-round pick in 2005 out of USC. He’s started 84 games and played in 95, the most of anybody on the current roster.

Practice resumed after about 15 minutes.

UPDATE: Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Mike Patterson to remain in hospital overnight

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The NFL is back in business and the Philadelphia Eagles are winging their way to Lehigh for training camp.

NFL players agreed to a new 10-year contract on Monday after owners approved a deal last week.

For now, the Eagles’ players will show up on Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., and go through a walkthrough practice on Thursday.

Fans will probably see some players on the field on Friday, but it certainly won’t be the entire team.

One issue is that the Eagles can’t start signing rookies and draft picks until Tuesday. The team can also start trading players, like Kevin Kolb, on Tuesday.

But NFL teams won’t be able to sign veteran free agents until Friday at 6 p.m., so it will be days before a full squad can be assembled at Lehigh.

And it will be a squad with as many as 90 Eagles players for training camp.

One fan who was excited is Philadelphia Eagles’ head coach Andy Reid.

“As far as our team, we look forward to reconvening in the near future and we are looking forward to holding training camp once again on the campus of Lehigh University. We understand that we have a lot of work ahead of us in order to get ready for the season opener at St. Louis and I’m excited to get started on that as soon as we can,” Reid said in a statement.

Probably as excited are local business in the Lehigh Valley who cater to fans.

The Philadelphia Eagles will hold training camp at Lehigh University, Dean of Athletics Joe Sterrett confirmed late this afternoon.

The team will report Wednesday to Lehigh — the designated start date for teams with Aug. 11 preseason games — and coach Andy Reid is expected to address the media at 5 p.m. that day, the team announced.

Players can report to the NovaCare complex in Philadelphia beginning at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

“As far as our team, we look forward to reconvening in the near future and we are looking forward to holding training camp once again on the campus of Lehigh University,” Reid said, according to the team. “We understand that we have a lot of work ahead of us in order to get ready for the season opener at St. Louis and I’m excited to get started on that as soon as we can.”

Training camp must be complete by Aug. 17, a week before students arrive, Sterrett said. The Eagles will break camp that day, the team said.

“They’re really not that far off their schedule practicing,” said Sterrett, adding that the Eagles normally would have reported today.

Lehigh’s football team comes to camp Aug. 8, but the overlap is common, Sterrett said. The Mountain Hawks will use different locker rooms and fields. The Eagles have typically left Lehigh before their second preseason game, Sterrett said.

The Eagles will have a public event Tuesday in Lower Saucon Township to “share the news and show appreciation for the area,” Sterrett said.

Starters Pub, 3731 Route 378, will host the 11:30 a.m. lunch which will include Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan and Sterrett.  Eagles Chief Operating Officer Don Smolenski will announce at that time when the first practice will be open to the public, according to a news release from the Eagles.

Lehigh is mostly ready for the Eagles, but the dining and housing services have some work to do planning meals and assigning dorm rooms, Sterrett said. When it became clear the owners and players were getting close to an agreement, Lehigh began preparing fields and bringing in bleachers.

“We’ll be ready,” Sterrett said. “I don’t know if it will be as smooth as usual.”

Just like in years past, the tents and bleachers that dot the Philadelphia Eagles’ training camp at Lehigh University started going up today on South Mountain.

Even with the NFL lockout threatening to squash training camp this year, some work is under way — deal or no deal.

Should fans read anything into that? Not necessarily, Lehigh and Eagles officials say.

“It’s just them making preparations on their end,” said Lehigh spokesman Steve Lomangino. “It’s the Eagles being proactive.”

The Eagles hire contractors to erect the bleachers that hold training camp watchers and tents for VIP guests and other uses. Work that started today is being done by the Eagles and not Lehigh, which hasn’t given up hope that camp will happen.

“We’re trying to be as prepared as possible in the event we go to Lehigh for training camp,” Eagles spokesman Derek Boyko said.

Lomangino said work started today would have happened under regular circumstances, with camp set to kick into gear the week of July 25.

“It’s not like this thing is almost over,” he said of the lockout that has lasted for months and led other teams to cancel their training camps. “It’s like, ‘Let’s get the work order in and get it done.’

“It’s easier to take it down then have to rush to put it up” if word comes of an agreement, Lomangino said. “Just like everyone else, we’re kind of waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

Eagles President Joe Banner earlier this week told philly.com he was determined to hold camp at Lehigh, the team’s summer landing spot since 1996.

Despite the improving climate of talks surrounding the NFL lockout, the chances of the Philadelphia Eagles holding their annual training camp at Lehigh University are narrowing with each passing day.

The fate of the camp, which has been held at Lehigh since 1995, has been in question for some time as labor negotiations have brought a halt to all team activities.

Last year, the Eagles held their first practice of training camp on July 27. However, the amount preparation that is required before the Eagles arrive on campus make a 2011 camp tenuous.

Don Smolenski, the Eagles’ chief operating officer, told The Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday that a “drop-dead date” had not been determined about holding camp at Lehigh.

Smolenski told the Inquirer that Lehigh “has been great and has been accommodating; they’re going to do whatever it takes to be able to host us.”

While Lehigh would have preferred a definite answer at this point, it hasn’t told the Eagles to find another place to hold camp, according to the Inquirer.

“So far, the dialogue has been, ‘We’re going to go with it, we’re going to do the best we can with whatever date comes,” Smolenski told the Inquirer.

Lehigh Dean of Athletics Joe Sterrett told The Express-Times in May the Eagles would need a minimum of a week to relocate to Bethlehem and that the university would probably need more time than that to make the necessary arrangements to the Goodman Stadium complex.

“Normally, it would take three to four weeks to put up the stands and tents that we do for camp,” Sterrett said in a May 25 article.

Sterrett also indicated that the Eagles couldn’t schedule their camp much deeper into August because the facilities would be needed for Lehigh students, who begin fall semester classes Aug. 29 and start returning to campus during the third week of the month.

Lehigh officials couldn’t be reached for comment Monday night.

If the lockout prevents the Eagles from scheduling camp at Lehigh, they would convene at their NovaCare Training Complex in south Philadelphia. Legal restrictions prevent practices at NovaCare from being open to the public.

The New York Giants announced Friday they would not be holding training camp at the University of Albany, but all sessions will be at their Meadowlands complex once the season resumes. Similarly, the New York Jets indicated last month they would hold camp at their team headquarters in Florham Park, N.J., instead of at SUNY-Cortland.

Advice for those Philadelphia Eagles fans planning their vacations around the Birds’ annual flight to Lehigh University for training camp:

Might want to keep an eye on that Shore rental, just in case.

Lehigh Dean of Athletics Joe Sterrett said today that a philly.com report that indicated a mid-June “drop-dead” deadline for the Eagles to notify Lehigh if camp would go on at the campus as scheduled wasn’t entirely accurate.

Still, he said that some lead time would be necessary once the NFL lockout is lifted or a settlement is reached between owners and players.

“Normally it would take three to four weeks to put up the stands and tents that we do for camp, and the Eagles usually start (around July 20), so that’s where that mid-June comment came from,” Sterrett said. “It’s great if we know that far in advance, but we’ll take any steps we can to help to accelerate the process. There’s no ultimatum from our side. We’re planning so we can respond as aggressively as possible.”

On the other hand, Sterrett made clear that the Eagles could not postpone
camp at Lehigh much farther into August than usual, because Lehigh needs to get its facilities ready for its students, who start to return the third week of August.

“From the front end, we won’t have anything else going on. We can go as long as need be (with certain caveats) until we make a decision,” Sterrett said. “But there’s not much give at the back end.”

So the window for whether or not the Eagles will be arriving at the Goodman Stadium complex in late July hasn’t even begun to close, yet, from Lehigh’s point of view. But the situation does not look promising for a Lehigh camp.

The absolute earliest that the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis, will issue a ruling on the merits of the injunction by the NFL Players Association seems to be late June. Anybody that knows anything about government’s workings would look at that date, notice the July 4 holiday coming up, and think that post-holiday may be more likely for a decision.

In any case, virtually no one expects that a ruling will be immediately accepted by the losing side. Even if it is, negotiations for a new labor settlement won’t go quickly. And would the Eagles really want to be signing players and bringing in free agents amid a move to Lehigh?

Sterrett said the Eagles themselves need a week, at a minimum, to relocate what they need to Bethlehem.

Asked if Lehigh could be ready in a week, Sterrett said, “I think we’d need some more time than that,” though he stressed the university would move as quickly as it could.

“If it means that the Eagles don’t think there will be enough time to have a constructive camp, they’re not going to do it,” Sterrett said. “It doesn’t come down to whether we can do it.”

The Eagles organization seems to value the time in Bethlehem (though the players could easily do without it), but coach Andy Reid said last week he was fine either way.

“We’ve got schedules set up,” Reid said. “If we have to practice (at the NovaCare Center in South Philadelphia), we practice here. If we have to practice at Lehigh, we practice at Lehigh. Everything is taken care of. We’ve got a good plan for both. I guess the changes (from Lehigh to NovaCare) would happen with the marketing department and the opportunity for the fans to see the team at that time, which is a shame.”

Any camp at NovaCare would be closed to fans due to legal restrictions put on the site when the Eagles built their complex there.

It would be a shame if Lehigh and local businesses missed out on revenue from Eagles camp, too, but Sterrett said any lost amount “would not create a hardship and would not effect anything we do.”

The clock is ticking, surely, on the Eagles’ chances of coming to Lehigh. And while the chances of them not coming are not as dire as have been advertised, neither are they very good — barring a labor settlement very soon.

Brad Wilson can be reached at 800-360-3601 or bwilson@express-times.com. Talk about sports at lehighvalleylive.com/forums.

Lehigh University has told the Philadelphia Eagles that the university needs to know by mid-June if the Eagles will hold training camp on South Mountain this summer, according to a Philadelphia Daily News report.

Although it is very unlikely the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals will have resolved the NFL labor dispute by then, camp cannot be pushed back to a later date at Lehigh. Students typically return around the time the Eagles traditionally leave campus in mid-August.

Lehigh athletic director Joe Sterrett has not returned calls seeking comment, but he has said in other reports that Lehigh is unlikely to find an activity to replace Eagles camp.

The Eagles are “kind of preparing both ways” for camp at Lehigh or not, Sterrett told the newspaper.

If the Eagles decide not to come to Lehigh, camp would likely be held at the NovaCare Center in South Philadelphia. Due to legal restrictions adopted at the time of that facility’s construction, it would not be open to the public.