Camps provide s’mores, songs and sometimes, scholarships
July 2nd, 2008 - byIt’s July 2, meaning summer is official in full-swing. Chances are, student-athletes are doing one of four things to occupy their time off:
- Lying around the house (this is a no-no)
- Taking summer school classes
- Working at a seasonal job
- Going to various camps for your sport
Hats off to you if you’re doing No. 2 and No. 3. But if you’re doing No. 4, you get an extra tip of the cap.
The University of North Alabama, located in Florence, just wrapped up its three-day Offensive/Defensive Line and Offensive Skills camps, where more than 600 high-school players attended and participated. While these camps allow high school players the opportunity to improve their game, they also give serious student-athletes the opportunity to showcase their on-field talent and potential.
And you might ask, “600 players? How am I going to get noticed with that many participants?”
I’ll let UNA coach Mark Hudspeth take care of that one.
“Every position coach has a group of 14 players he is responsible for,” Hudspeth said. “They let me know who to watch, and that allows me to walk around and see each prospect.
And you might gripe, “But it’s only a camp! I don’t need to go to a camp to prove I’m scholarship worthy!”
True, you can get offered a scholarship from a school without attending its camp. But in some cases, like UNA’s … well, I’m going to throw it back to Coach Hudspeth.
Hudspeth said it is not unusual for a player to impress the coaches so much in camp that the kid heads back home with a scholarship offer.
“We do offer some that we haven’t seen before camp,” he said. “On Sunday night, we visit with a select few, and have them fill out a questionnaire. We’ll either offer them a scholarship there or let them know that we will be recruiting them.”
There you go. Right from the horse’s mouth. Now of course, this is not to say that every camp offers scholarships to stand-outs (or s’mores and songs for that matter). But if you never go, you’ll never know.
