Kids Learn Fundamentals of Football Through One-Week Camp
Every week night last week for three hours a group of kids came together to learn about the game of football. The White Plains Youth Football League held its first of two summer camps. Overseeing the camp was White Plains High School Varsity Coach Skip Stevens and Jim Huebner, who is the head of the White Plains Tigers Youth Football.
The one-week program gave some kids who had a very limited knowledge of the game a chance to experience and learn something new. The three-hour daily camp was broken down into several short periods of time which allowed the kids to stretch, work on their cardiovascular health and work on certain skills in the game. The camp ended each day with a short game of flag football, which allowed the kids to try to take their new knowledge of the game and use it on the field.
This camp allowed children of all ages and different skill levels to take part in the camp and learn more about the game. Naledge Wilder, who is going into fifth grade at the Church Street School, hasn’t had too much exposure to football. During the camp he learned how to line up in different stances and positions. He would like to be a running back one day for White Plains High School.
Another camper Teddy Hauser, who is going to a third grader at the Church Street School, loves the Patriots and Tom Brady. He told Coach Stevens before camp on Thursday evening that one day he will be playing on Loucks Memorial Field, which is the home of White Plains High School Football. Hauser hopes to play quarterback on his youth football team this fall.
One of the nice things about this camp was that it wasn’t limited to boys and there were several girls who took part in it too. One of the girls was Hayley Hatziolouloudes. She is going to be a ninth grader at White Plains High School this fall. Football is her favorite sport even though she isn’t on a team. She loves cheering for the Jets and believes that her participation in this camp will help in the other sports she plays including field hockey, basketball and lacrosse.
For Stevens, getting a chance to work with kids is a nice breath of fresh air from the daily grind and strict details that go into coaching one of the most challenging varsity sports. He loves seeing the enthusiasm the kids have for the game and trying to learn the fundamentals.
“I loved the fact of teaching the sport from the ground level to younger kids,” said Stevens. “I love the game of football as you know. To be able to teach it from the ground level to all the way up, basically it’s non-competitive. The kids are soaking this up and I’m loving it.”
Huebner also shares Stevens’ strong feelings about teaching football to kids, including many who have never been exposed to the game before.
“At the end of the day we get a lot of kids who never played football before. We want that because we want to engage them and get them into the sport. We do that in a non-contact environment. We do that through a lot of skills and agility work where each kids gets to touch the ball and each kid gets to play every position,” said Huebner.
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