Football and computer science

Ohiodad51
Tue, 05 Apr 2016 13:23:17 +0000

@moscott, I hope you enjoy this summer with your son. I had a blast touring around with the kid in the family truckster when he did his camps. Hope you enjoy it as well. As far as advice for your son, here you go:

1. Go in in very good shape. The camps generally break down into two periods of a couple hours each (kinda like a two a day practice). One session will be mostly testing and the other will be evaluative under practice conditions. The sessions (especially the evaluative sessions) will run at college tempo which is much faster that high school tempo. I saw a lot of kids sucking wind during camp days which is not a good look.

2. Be prepared for the level of competition to be well above high school practice. At the camps my son attended, maybe a quarter to a third of the kids in his position groups were legit D1 level players. Since the coaches will at times move guys around so that they are competing against players of roughly equivalent skill, there are no real “free” reps at camp days.

3. Work his form. A lot. One of the easiest things to judge in a one day camp is if a particular kid has good technique.

4. Pay attention. Know what you are supposed to do in each drill and compete hard in every one.

5. Have fun. Let the coaches see that you enjoy the game and the competition.

Now advice for dad:

1. If possible, do not schedule camp days back to back. When my son camped, we had at least one day between each camp day so he could recover.

2. Make sure he is eating right and hydrating.

3. Be prepared for some flat out crazy parents. One anecdote. I was at a camp day sitting next to a dad on the edge of the field watching pass pro drills. His kid, who was obviously not ready for the level of competition, was having a very bad day. Since the dad had spent the morning telling me how great his kid was, this came as something of a shock to the dad. He began chirping from the sidelines. Eventually the kid came over to him and the two of them got into a shouting match. Don’t be that guy.