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Tech Football Camp Excels
July 20, 2008
RUSTON - Derek Dooley loves a challenge. When the second-year Bulldog football coach - and new Louisiana Tech Athletic Director - took over the program a year ago December, he was told that the summer camps just couldn't draw the numbers he desired. Less than two years later, the Dooley-Dawg high school football camp drew more than 250 players this past week as student-athletes from all over Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi merged on the Louisiana Tech campus. "It's all a process," Dooley said. "It just takes time. Things like this, they can build over time. Some of these same guys were here last year, and then they go tell their friends about it and the word starts spreading." Evidently, the word spread fast. The four-day camp which was geared for young men entering grades nine through 12 almost doubled in size in just one year. Last summer the camp drew around 140 campers; this year, more than 250. "I'm extremely pleased with the numbers," Dooley said. "It's phenomenal. It's a great testament to the excitement surrounding our program and how we are doing things at Louisiana Tech. We have some great players and some fine young men coming through here this week." The entire Bulldog coaching staff spent four solid days with the campers, overcoming the extreme Louisiana heat. "We live in Louisiana," Dooley joked when asked. "Heat is inevitable. You just have to embrace it and be thankful it's not raining. We've gotten a lot of work done this week." Dooley said that the high school camp, which is just one of a number of camps that he and his staff conduct each summer, is invaluable for a number of reasons. "First, it's a great promotion for high school football," he said. "It's a great way for us to give back to these kids and the high school game. It's also a great chance for these young men to come on campus and see how we do things. It's part of the recruiting process. Anytime you can get a kid on campus, it's big in the long run. "It's invaluable. We can learn more about a student-athlete at this camp than anything else we do. You have an opportunity to coach them and see how they respond. Hopefully, it will pay dividends in the end." During the camp, the student-athletes were divided by positions as the Tech coaching staff evaluated their techniques closely. Each day, two practice sessions were held - one morning and one afternoon - before the day was capped off by "two-hand touch" games. Other features of the camp included an "Attitude Talk", testing, weight room work and watching NFL Film's programs. And although trying to double the camps numbers next year again will be a challenge, it's something that Dooley looks forward to. "Every time we do something, we want to do it a little better every time," Dooley said. |
