The football camp season has begun and Jimmy has been invited to try out for Team USA.This is a pretty cool organization, very organized, well run and full of information for young kids thinking about trying to play college football. Unlike some other camps we have been at this one does not focus on the NFL but focuses on division 2 and division 3 schools.
It was a two day camp and Jimmy had a blast.
Day 1: We arrived signed in and sat through a 45 minute presentation about the camp, the coaches and what to expect. Jimmy is currently playing line backer so after the meeting all the athlete's took the field to warm up and then break out into position groups. There would be a series of 4 3 hour practice sessions through out the c amp. The first one was basically getting the players warmed up and into the right groups. They ran a few drills then we broke for an hour lunch.
Jimmy was pretty pumped over lunch talking about how it was going and what he was learning, having never really been in the linebacker roll he was excited to get the training. The afternoon was more of the same with some one on one drills with he linebackers going against the running backs. The session ended at 7:00 and Jimmy was pretty beat. He was of course excited and had several new theories about football camps, college coaches and the whole process. He said that there are three things you need to do to impress the coaches:
1. Look the part, you need a cut off shirt some facial hair and look like a football player.
2. You have to know what you are doing if you stumble over a drill, look lost and are not fluid in your play the coaches will know your not serious.3. Have a good attitude and be aggressive .
Kind of sounds like Jimmy doe want it!
Day 2: We started the day at 9:00 with and hour session of the Ins and outs of being a college recruit. It was a very informative meeting and Tom came away with a long too do list,, first thing is to get Jimmy registered with the NCAA, you can't play college football or get recruited with the right forms, and the NCAA is the first one you need.Jimmy headed back onto the field for the next 3 hour session. The groups again broke off into position groups, ,ran a bunch of drills and then did the 40 yard dash test. The after lunch it was all 7 on 7 type drills no tackling but there was differently contact, and Jimmy let his presence be known!!When it was all done and said
, Jimmy was invited by two colleges, Hamline University and Presentation College to come and attend their summer camps. The Hamline's Coach gave Jimmy a hand written assessment and ask that he keep in touch. Jimmy's take away from the camp was,that he is physically ready and is very much where he needs to be. On the recruiting side he said that he spent all of his time with two coaches, and he impressed both of them to the point of being invited to their camps and being asked to keep in touch, overall a pretty good start to the season.
Next up The University of Minnesota and the PJ Fleck camp....
