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Post by vikingo on Feb 27, 2007 20:59:29 GMT -6
I've gone to football camp for the past 5 years with last year being my 1st as the head coach. This year the cost of camp has gone up to $140 per player. Our district does not allow us to ask the kids to pay their own way and we must fundraise to pay for camp. I'm looking at around 70 players going and a total cost of almost $10,000 to go to camp for 5 days. I'm trying to decide if it's worth it financially to go. We are a small school/community and that's a lot of fundraising for us. For anyone that goes to camp, what do you get out of it? For anyone that has gone in the past but doesn't go now, why did you stop going?
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Post by sls on Feb 27, 2007 21:21:14 GMT -6
Coaching from other coaches.
Team bonding
Complete focus on football
I think $140 is pretty cheap if you think the instruction is good. Since you said a small community I assume 70 kids is 9-12, maybe take varsity guys only yo cut down on cost.
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Post by ajreaper on Feb 27, 2007 21:37:30 GMT -6
140 is cheap- from my experience and it seems absolutely silly you cannot ask players to pay there own way. Many of them and their parents would prefer that to endless fund raising- which often means 50% do 90% of the fund raising and the other half get to reap the rewards of those who bust their humps. I think camps are invaluable to start developing team chemistry and help set the tone for the entire season.
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Post by vikingo on Feb 27, 2007 22:33:56 GMT -6
Our district won't deny a student the right to participate in anything (camps, field trips, etc.) because the family can't afford it. The school, club, or team has to raise money to pay for the activity. I don't have a problem with the policy but I don't want to become a full-time fundraiser either. This past year we went to camp and it cost us $5500 to go. We spent one less night and only had 42 coaches and players go. This year our school calendar changed and we're able to go for an extra day and our number s have doubled and so has the cost. The majority of our team is 9th, 10th, and 11 graders. It will be hard to decide which ones to take when I'm not certain how many of those 9th graders we will need. (The best athletes we have are rising 9th graders.) When I took this job last year I didn't spend too much time trying to recruit rising JRs and SRs but focused on the younger players. We finished last year with 3 SRs and 1 JR playing varsity football. Needless to say we went 0-10 but our JV team went 6-1 and my middle school had a winning record also. I've had to make a lot of changes in this program and eventually it will pay off on the varsity level.
When I took this job I knew that it would be a struggle for 2-3 years but could be a good situation eventually. There are a lot of other things I'd love to have (editing system) and I want to use the money I raise wisely. If you had to decide between camp for 5 days and an editing system and some other extras for your players, what would you do?
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Post by coachbw on Feb 27, 2007 22:47:41 GMT -6
My thought is that is a lot of money to spend on a camp. Maybe not the individual price, but when you start talking thousands of dollars. Is it possible for you to get together with a couple of other schools and run a camp yourselves? I know a few years back some of the schools in the area got together. Between our 4 staffs there was a real expert in almost every position area, and also enough coaches at that position to make it work. We liked the setup because it allowed us to have our kids with other position coaches, but still gave us time to work with our own kids on scheme and also to play some 7 on 7 with other schools. We charged the kids like $30 and used it to pay for t-shirts, coaches, and then had a different college head coaches from the state come in and talk for 15-20 minutes each night.
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bigcroz
Junior Member
Go STAGS!!
Posts: 356
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Post by bigcroz on Feb 28, 2007 8:26:12 GMT -6
We do our own camp the first week of practice. I keep the kids at the school (read: only expense is food). They report at 7 am Monday and get released @ 4 pm on Friday. We all sleep in the cafeteria, since school hasn't started yet. 5 days of football only, no girls, cell phones, etc. It really helps us jump start our season. Allows for alot of instruction and insertion. Our admin. has been super supportive and gave us use of the kitchen and anything else we need to make the week work. My QB Club works out lunch and dinner everyday, and the coaches set out fruit, bagels, juice for them first thing in the morning. Has worked great for us. I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone might have.
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Post by raider7342 on Feb 28, 2007 9:41:11 GMT -6
croz,
i really like your camp idea. how did you set up your daily routine and how did you monitor players at night, breaks etc.
what about outside contact, practice schedule, any info or problems that you ran into. very interested in doing something like this. a lot of our guys go to basketball camp which is like $300 so i hate to ask another 200 for football a month or so later.
raider
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Post by wingtol on Feb 28, 2007 10:22:39 GMT -6
We do camp the second week of practice where we go away to a local camp ground for 4-5 days with just the coaches and players. We have a few sources of funding for the expenses, rental coast and food. Parents come out and cook lunch and dinner and we do the typical breakfast stuff. Its is IMHO the best thing we do for our team. It's a great way to build unity and bond as players and a team. Plus it gives us complete control of the team for almost a week. We practice 3 times a day and bring all our film stuff out to film practice and watch it so its a great time to just focus on football.
As far as monitoring the players at night they are usually pretty tired and ready for bed by the time we are done. Of course we stay up past lights out and make sure all is well before we turn in. We usually have to set the tone with a cabin or two the first night ie- up downs at 1 am to get all the extra energy out. Our kids are pretty well behaved in general and know they will be in for a long week if they screw around. We follow a basic schedule of :
6:30 wake up
7 run and stretch
7:30 Breakfast
9-11/11:30 practice 1
12 Special teams
12:30ish lunch
1-4 free time/film/meeting
4:30-6:30/7 practice 2
7:30 dinner
11:00 lights out
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Post by cjkal30 on Feb 28, 2007 10:25:26 GMT -6
We do the samething as Croz. We have our camp at the school for 3 nights. We report on a monday at 8am. Kids drop off bags and sleeping things in the gym. On the field for 9:15 we then have lunch and another practice then dinner and then a special teams session. Pizza for late night snack. We get the parents to help with lunch and dinner. The next morning we have a 615 wake up with stretch and agility and a 30 minute run, then brakfast, and the rest of the schedule same as day before. The kids love it. We do not allow cell phones, but we watch football movies, old games and highlight videos. Great experience and doesn't cost that much.
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bigcroz
Junior Member
Go STAGS!!
Posts: 356
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Post by bigcroz on Mar 1, 2007 23:04:16 GMT -6
As far as monitoring thw kids we always put in a movie by 8:30 either old film or football movie and by 10 when I turn out the lights its usually only the coaches left up. The kids know what is in store the next day if they mess around plus they are pretty whipped after 3 practices and 3 1 hour classroom sessions. We choose to stay at the school because no contact allowed away from school until the scrimmage at the end of week 2. Staying at the school gets us 2 days of pads(thurs-Fri) during camp. Schedule is liek this: 7 wake 7:45 dynamic warm up 8 Defensive practice 9:30/45 Clean up/rest 11 lunch 12 Offensive meeting 1 stretch 1:15 Offensive practice 3 clean up break 4:30 Dinner 5:45 Special teams meeting 6:15 Special teams practice 7 Clean up 7:30 Defensive meeting 8:30 movie/free time Those are baseline times and we adjust from there depending on how the week is going. Hope this answers your  |
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