Clemson Football Camp ....

Jun 15, 2015, 11:41 AM

Back in the 70s my best friend and I went to football camp. It was totally different than now. It was purely instructional and lasted a full week. They grouped kids by age, with JR's up to the 8th grade and SR's 9th thru 12th. Some high schools would send their entire team to camp.

My friend & I were the same age, birthdays less than 15 days apart, but due to a weird quirk he started school early and was a rising freshman in high school. Since I was going into the 8th grade and considered a JR, he and I were split up. The JR's were in one section of Johnstone and the SR's in another. A lot of the kids in the SR group smoked, some would smuggle in beer at night, and over half of them had Playboy centerfolds on their dorm room walls. And they had a later bed check. Almost all of my friends growing up were older so being stuck with all those little kids drove me crazy.

There were two sessions each day. A morning session followed by lunch and a break. Then an afternoon session. Following the afternoon session we were free to do as we pleased until bed check. Our 3 daily meals were in Harcombe.

One of my neighbors growing up had 4 daughters and the oldest was a CU student in summer school. I ran into her in Harcombe a few days for lunch and ate with her. She was seriously hot and I felt so cool eating with her instead of a bunch of kids/campers. One day Jim Stuckey sat with us. He knew her and was working his game hard. Man he had an out of control blond afro. FYI Jim has lived down here in Charleston for years as a successful real estate agent at Kiawah.

Following the afternoon session and after dinner my friend and I had a blast exploring the tunnels and all the quirks and hidden rooms on the lower level of the old student union. We hung out in the union a lot bowling and playing video games.

Football camp then was similar to any other week long summer camp.

Football camp now sounds totallyyyy different. It sounds more like a recruiting program now. A long weekend where high school kids come and go and there are different kids coming and going daily. Do they run 2 different camps parallel to each other? One camp that is more instructional in nature and much more organized for the younger kids. Then a second camp that is for high school kids we are recruiting or interested in seeing up close? Do these kids even stay on campus?

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

null

The first 2 weeks of camp are for the youth grades 2-7. You have the option to stay as a resident ($225) or commute ($175).

The youth camp is very structured and runs on an itenarary that pretty much goes sun up to sun down with breaks for lunch and dinner. The rising 2-4th grades practice in the indoor facility. The others practice outside and they are more psoition specific. They all compete in teams against each ohter in Swinney Ball which is a crazy modified version of tag football. The evening ends with tours of the WEZ/weight room and watching a video from the field at DV.

There are approx. 40 alumni, former players, coaching staff, training staff and a few local HS coaches that work the camp. There are also approx. 30 current players that work the camp for an NCAA allowed stipend. This year session II had over 700 kids. Session I probably had a little over 500. You do the math it brings in alot of $$$.

The HS camps runs in a similar fashion but there are campers that come and go. Some of them only run certain drills. Some of them are there to interact with the coaches and see how things “run” at CU. At times you will also see kids taking visits during the camp. Their rates are $325 and $265 but I’m pretty sure some of the more prominent and sought after kids are “invited” to participate by the coaching staff which leads me to believe for free but I’m not 100% on that.

My son (9) recently went for the third time and from what I gather from speaking with folks over the years with other little ones and HS age kids it is one of the best ran camps in the country. I personally have listened to people speak of driving past USC, UGA, FSU, etc. jus tto come to Dabo’s camp. My favorite part of campis watching the staff interact with campers and each other. Guys like Scott, Elliott, Streeter, Venables are destined for great things down the road. Jeff Scott already has a presence about him that he is pretty much running things. It’s also nice to see the alum come back to give back, Woddy D, X Dye, Anthony Waters, James Lott, the list goes on and on. They aren’t there to just be seen and relive glory days. They work their butts off and so do the kids!

Clemson Football Camp ....

From my understanding

Re: Clemson Football Camp ....

Point. Thanks. So they are running almost 3 different camps

TigerBoard POTD