By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
You might think that when it comes down to the most significant part of summer sports camps, the list would include learning an effective two-handed backhand, proper technique for a corner kick or how to hit a knockdown 7-iron.
But when you talk to some of those who are running those camps, you’ll quickly find out that there is something much more important.
“We try not to overload them with too much technique,” says Grady Wilson, general manager/director of tennis at Pierremont Oaks Tennis Club. “What’s important is fun and games.
“And popsicles.”
“When mom or dad come to pick them up after our three-hour sessions, they are going to be hot, sweaty and sticky,” says Querbes Park golf pro Nathan Barrow, “and covered in popsicle juice.”
If you haven’t figured it out by now, the summer sports camps are equal parts fun and games as much as they are about the actual sport itself.
“We have peanuts everywhere they go,” Barrow says. “The kids love feeding the squirrels at Querbes Park.”
POTC has a summer program that combines tennis in the morning and swimming in the afternoon, so many stay at the complex the entire day. “We have them playing (tennis) on the courts in the back,” Wilson says. “My office is in the front and I can still hear them giggling and having fun all the way up there. I love seeing their cheeks get red all morning and then they hit the pool in the afternoon.”
If there’s a sport, you just about bet there’s a summer camp for it.
Just about as soon as the last school bell rings, summer sports camp season opens up. And there’s plenty of them. There are the traditional ones – baseball, softball, golf, tennis, soccer, etc. – but there also those for sports such as archery, weightlifting, lacrosse and gymnastics.
CABOSA, the local parent organization for soccer, has camps all summer for those ages 5 to 19 years old. There have already been two weeks of camps at Cargill Park with three more yet to come for all skill levels.
Instruction is done by four CABOSA directors, club coaches plus a few college players such as Louisiana Tech’s Kalli Matlock.
“The purpose is to keep kids playing. If you don’t do anything over the summer, a lot of the skills you learned throughout the year start to get rusty, so we just want to keep them playing,” Matlock says. “Summer camps are supposed to be fun, too. For kids who take it seriously, camps are there for them to still have fun while they are playing and have a relaxing experience than it being serious all the time.”
Camps are open for a wide range of age groups. “We start taking them at 4 years old up to 17, but most of the focus is from 5 to 11,” Wilson says. “A lot of them have never played (tennis) before. We teach them some technical stuff, but at that age, it’s all about fun.”
“I’m trying to hook them for life in a fun environment that has some golf to it,” Barrow says. “We are more fun-centric than golf-centric. We want them to remember how much fun they had while they were out at the golf course. Balloon fights, tag relay race games … we do all sorts of things.”
Because Querbes has been closed due to a greens renovation, that has allowed the campers to go out on the course and play some holes without interrupting the flow of the daily golfers. “It took them an hour to play two holes,” Barrow says. “It was great. They were able to take their time and they didn’t know the difference.”
All camps try to keep their instructor/camper ratio as low as possible. “I’m trying to make it so that it’s not one teacher with 15 kids,” Barrow says. “That can be mass chaos. We can only handle 16 (campers) at a time, so we try to have three teachers so the kids get a little more personal time and we move them from station to station.”
It’s summer fun for the campers, but it’s also good for the instructors.
“This is a really good experience for me,” Matlock says. “It’s cool for me to see them having a really good time and they really look up to the coaches. You can tell the admiration they have for their coaches because I remember being a kid and thinking that about my coaches. Sometimes the younger kids are a little impatient and a little harder to work with so it’s good for me to have patience with them.”
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com