Re-Thinking Summer Camp

Coach,

I know it is a little late, but we are in the same boat. It is tough on kids, coaches, and parents. This week alone my youngest (going into 9th grade) has football weights, babe ruth, HS summer baseball and a JV basketball tournament this weekend.

Most of our kids are two or three sport kids because they would kill the other programs if they specialized, so this is how we work it out.

Baseball coaches (babe ruth and summer HS) get the summer basketball and football schedule and manage their teams/games around those schedules if possible.

Generally speaking June is considered the month for basketball and July the month for football. Weights are Monday-Wed and have both football and basketball players but is run by the Head football coach. We do work on certain things but it is generally about conditioning. Basketball usually has two camps in Jun at a couple of different colleges and a number of local tournaments. Unless it conflicts with Baseball all stars the camps are the kids first priority.

July is for football. Usually baseball is done by the second week of july (could be a MAJOR conflict this year however). We start to concentrate on football in the weight room and on the field. We go to a defensive camp every Jul (full contact) and have a three full pad practice prior to the camp which is a Friday/Sat/Sun. We come back and then have what we call a little devil camp for the youth football league, and shorts and cleats practice after that.

Then we take two weeks off to let the kids relax and the parents get a breath, this year we come back for weights the 10 of August and start two a days on the 13th.

It still gets a little sloppy but I think overall we do a pretty good job of working together. Our belief is that if you have a baseball game, or family vacation don't miss it. But if you are sitting at home you need to be at weights or open gym ect.

One thing that everyone understands is that a kid may play three sports but he does normally have a "primary" sport, so if there is a conflict than there is no heart burn about attending your "primary" sporting event-unless it means the other group might have to forfit.

As a side note-we are a small community so pretty much all the coaches know each other and we work with the middle school. If the HS summer team is short a few kids for their game we will bring up a couple of the 14/15 babe ruth kids, if that makes them short one kid or so, they will bring up someone from the 13 prep team. The younger kids love it and it gives the HS coaches a chanch to work with them directly.