The arrival of the summer months and the completion of the school year brought bunches of youngsters to the South Park Blocks last week to take part in youth football and basketball camps.
The Portland State football team welcomed approximately 250 football protégés, all under eighth grade, to the second annual Jerry Glanville Youth Football Camp, and the men’s basketball team greeted 60 young hoopsters during the week-long training sessions.
All the young aspiring athletes were eager to work with current and former Vikings players as well as the coaches that staffed the summer camps.
“Given our location, it is important to offer a camp of some type to provide our local kids with accessible coaching and instruction,” said men’s head basketball coach Ken Bone.
Bone also cited the financial boost that the camps give the program as further incentive.
“We don’t make a lot of money on the camps, but they give us a chance to give a little bonus to our assistants, who are underpaid,” Bone said.
Volleyball, women’s basketball and softball also have had or will conduct camps this summer, following a trend that is becoming popular in collegiate athletics.
“It is so important for us to get our name out there and hopefully leave a positive impression on these young players,” said women’s head basketball coach Sherri Murrell.
After just her first year at Portland State, Murrell extended the reach of her program to Hermiston, Ore., where her staff had 50 participants in their camp.
Earlier this month, Murrell held an elite players camp at the Stott Center, which featured 15 of the premier high school players in the region, and gave Murrell and her staff a personal glimpse into the talent, skills and work ethic of the potential recruits.
Despite suffering through a disappointing first season, head football coach Jerry Glanville’s prominent name brought out the largest group ever for a youth football camp at Portland State.
In addition to teaching football fundamentals like blocking, passing and tackling, the camp included a well-attended scrimmage Saturday, June 28, which Glanville said displayed the enthusiasm that people have for football in this area.
“I have never seen so many violent mothers on the sidelines. All of them were encouraging their kid to hit harder,” Glanville said of the participants’ mothers he witnessed during the scrimmage.
Glanville also said that giving the youth of the Portland area an opportunity to work with his staff, which included current Portland State players and coaches as well as local high school coaches, would be advantageous to the attendees.
“We really saw growth everyday from the kids, and this camp gives them a nice base to improve on,” Glanville said.
According to Portland State Athletic Director Torre Chisholm and the coaches who helped conduct the camps, they can serve as great local exposure for the youngsters attending as well as continue to build up the image of Vikings athletics to the rest of the community.
“We hope that these camps have a residual effect and create a stronger fan base for our teams and university,” Chisholm said.
Chisholm and the coaches also recognize the importance of having their current players help facilitate the camps.
“For the kids that attend the camp, hopefully it gives them a role model to look up to,” Bone said.
“And in that same sense, hopefully it gives our current players perspective because they realize that these kids are looking up to them. They are having to teach the same things that we try to teach our players, just on a different scale.”
Upcoming Portland State Athletics Camps
IME UDOKA BASKETBALL CAMPAugust 4-8 http://www.hoopdreams.info/imeudokacamp.html
SOFTBALLJuly 22Impact Elite Offensive & Defensive (Grades 9-12)
July 23Impact Team Camp
July 24 Impact Young Guns Offensive & Defensive (Grades 1-8)
VOLLEYBALLJuly 17-19Skills Camps
July 24-26Advanced Position Camps