Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #19: Gill1918 presents Dustin Allen "Why I Host an Annual Youth T&F Camp"
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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- 0:06Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
- 0:09Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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- 0:23Now let's get into today's topic.
- 0:27Hey, how's it going, guys? I'm so happy to be back on the
- 0:30Guild Podcast again. Thanks to Mike for always
- 0:33thinking of me, inviting me to be on.
- 0:35We're talking with Mike. I think one of the big things he
- 0:37wanted me to talk about was our youth track and field camp that
- 0:40we do every year. So every year at Culbertson we
- 0:43do a track and field camp in the month of July.
- 0:46We usually do it the week after July 4th.
- 0:49And the reason that we do this camp is to get kids excited
- 0:52about the sport of track and field and get our community
- 0:55behind us as well. So it's always great to be able
- 0:57to work with the younger kids and the younger generation that
- 1:00are going to come up and feed into our program in the future.
- 1:03So we really try to do a great job of hosting this camp every
- 1:06year to get kids excited about track and field.
- 1:08You know, all the other big sports, you know, football
- 1:10always has a camp, basketball has camps all over baseball, so
- 1:13on and so forth. They're always doing these huge
- 1:15camps. And I want to bring that same
- 1:17level of excitement to track and field and I want to get our
- 1:20community involved in track and field and be able to coach those
- 1:23kids, even if it's only for, you know, four days as they're
- 1:28coming up through the program and, and, and through our
- 1:30elementary and into the middle school and then into the high
- 1:32school. So I'm just going to give you
- 1:34guys some information about our camp, kind of how we run the
- 1:36camp and things like that. So the reason to have the camp,
- 1:40as I stated, is 1, to really get the community involvement to, to
- 1:45be able to coach our kids from a very young age, see that talent
- 1:493, get the kids excited about track and field and all the
- 1:52different events in track and field.
- 1:54And then four, it also works as a huge fundraiser for us as
- 1:58well. So all of those things go
- 2:00together to help build the program that we have here at
- 2:02Cuthbertson High School. So the big thing that you guys
- 2:07need to do if you're trying to start a camp is start planning
- 2:10ahead of time. The first year we had camp, I
- 2:13started planning it the December before, so really about seven
- 2:17months ahead of time. Now that we've been running camp
- 2:19for about 10 years, I'm able to, you know, start planning a
- 2:22little bit later. I just started working on
- 2:24everything for this year's camp last week.
- 2:26So I started send that stuff out.
- 2:28The good thing is once you run your first camp, your second
- 2:30camp becomes that much easier. Third camp, so on and so forth.
- 2:33And then the kids that you had that were in 3rd grade, they
- 2:36want to come back as 4th graders.
- 2:38They want to come back as fifth graders.
- 2:39They want to come back 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grade.
- 2:42So you know the word of mouth starts going around, especially
- 2:44when they have a fun time at the camp.
- 2:47So what we do for our camp is we charge $150.00 per athlete.
- 2:52And then if you have a family, we do a discounted rate.
- 2:55So it's 250 for two or more kids.
- 2:58So that that way one family, if they have two or three kids are
- 3:02able to pay that 250 instead of paying, you know, 400 dollars,
- 3:05$500, whatever that might be for however many kids that they
- 3:07have. So we, we try to do it that way
- 3:10in order to help them save costs per family.
- 3:13The one thing that the kids all get is every year we create a
- 3:17design for our camp. We give everyone a camp T-shirt.
- 3:21So every camper at our camp will get a camp T-shirt.
- 3:25But more importantly, they're going to get four days of track
- 3:28and field training with what we believe to be one of the best
- 3:31Staffs in the country. So that's always going to be
- 3:35good for them as well. And So what we do is we bring
- 3:37the kids in and on day one we'll all introduce ourselves, we'll
- 3:41meet with them, we'll talk to them for a little bit.
- 3:43So day one is a little bit more hectic.
- 3:45Obviously you have check in. So we do camp from 8:00 in the
- 3:48morning to 11:30. So each day we'll have check in
- 3:52that's anytime from 7:30 to 8:00.
- 3:54That's where their parents will be dropping them off.
- 3:56That's what we'll be checking their paperwork, making sure
- 3:58that they have all their paperwork filled out, their
- 4:01insurance forms, all of that type of stuff to kind of get
- 4:04them ready to go and get them rolling.
- 4:06That's when we'll hand out their T-shirts, all of that, and then
- 4:09we'll get them into the stands. Once we get them in the stands,
- 4:11like I said, each coach, we're going to introduce ourselves,
- 4:14who we are, what group we're going to be working with, and
- 4:17then we have all of our high school athletes that want to
- 4:19come. They all come out to the camp
- 4:21and they work with the campers. So usually we have anywhere
- 4:25between 100 to 200 campers every single year and that number
- 4:29keeps growing as we continue to grow the camp and we continue to
- 4:32grow the sport. And with kids keep talking back
- 4:34and forth with one another, they want to be a part of this camp.
- 4:37So they want to continue coming back each and every year so
- 4:39we're able to get more and more numbers.
- 4:41So with more and more numbers, obviously we need more and more
- 4:43help from our athletes at the high school level.
- 4:45But most of the athletes at this point have come through the camp
- 4:48or did the camp at some point on when they were younger.
- 4:50Now they're on the high school team.
- 4:51So they always want to give back to those younger.
- 4:55The younger kids are the younger generation, so they can help
- 4:57them become better and better. And So what we do with all of
- 5:01the kids is we split them up by grade levels.
- 5:04Usually we have third and 4th grade go together because we
- 5:06don't have that many of them. So usually there's somewhere
- 5:09between 10 and 15 third graders and maybe 10 to 15 fourth
- 5:13graders. So we're able to put them
- 5:14together and have a small group of somewhere between 20 and 30.
- 5:18And then we'll have a fifth grade group, a 6th grade group,
- 5:20A 7th grade group, an eighth grade group, and a ninth grade
- 5:22group. So our camp is third grade
- 5:24through 9th grade every single year that we do the camp.
- 5:28And so every year we pretty much run the camp the same thing.
- 5:31But as the kids grow older, obviously we're able to
- 5:33implement a little bit more with them than we were when when they
- 5:36were younger. So our biggest thing and trying
- 5:40to get our sports more notoriety and and get them excited about
- 5:45the sport. Every year at our camp, each of
- 5:48the kids gets to do every event for track and field.
- 5:51So let's just say you are a third grader and you're going to
- 5:54be put in that third and 4th grade group.
- 5:56So we're going to we're going to talk to you guys on day one
- 5:58about 8:30. We're going to break up.
- 6:01High schoolers are going to be in charge of each of the groups.
- 6:03They're going to bring the groups down to the track and
- 6:05we're going to get everybody warmed up.
- 6:06So every single 3rd grade, 4th grade, no matter what it is,
- 6:11they're going to go through our high school warm up.
- 6:13OK, so they're going to do at least one lap.
- 6:15We're not going to make them do two or three like some of the
- 6:17kids do on our high school team, but they'll do at least one lap,
- 6:20kind of get warmed up. And then they'll go through all
- 6:22of our, our normal warmups, our A skips, our B skips, our high
- 6:25knees, everything that we do for, for a normal warmup.
- 6:27So that's going to take them at least 1520 minutes on day one,
- 6:32kind of get that done. Then from there we have a
- 6:34schedule. That schedule's going to be
- 6:37written out. We're going to send it out to
- 6:38all the coaches. We're going to send it out to
- 6:39all the helpers that we have as well.
- 6:42And they're going to know exactly where they're going and
- 6:44what they're doing that day. So we're just going to pretend
- 6:46that we're 1/3 grader at this point and kind of go through the
- 6:49days for them. So day one, it's now roughly
- 6:529:00. So we've, we've had about an
- 6:54hour. We've we've talked, introduced
- 6:56everybody. We've gotten through the warm
- 6:57up. Now they're going to go to their
- 6:59first group. So a third and 4th grader,
- 7:01they're going to start at sprints, OK, So they're going to
- 7:04go to the Sprint group. So if you're a third or fourth
- 7:06grader, they're going to kind of teach you basics, run form, some
- 7:10things like that. They might get you in some
- 7:12blocks or just have a race, something fun for the kids to
- 7:15do. And they're going to have that
- 7:16for about 35 minute period. So you're going to work sprints
- 7:19for 35 to 40 minutes depending on which day it is.
- 7:22On the days when we don't have as much at the beginning, like
- 7:24Tuesday and Wednesday, they're going to have a little bit
- 7:26longer at each station. But on on Tuesday, that very
- 7:29first day, since we're condensed with everything we did at the
- 7:32start, they're only going to have about 30 minutes there.
- 7:36And so they're going to go through the Sprint group first.
- 7:39Then I'm going to blow the whistle at whatever time it is.
- 7:41Let's say it's 935. They're all going to get a 5
- 7:43minute water break. We are doing this in July in
- 7:46North Carolina. So it's going to be very hot,
- 7:48which is one reason why we always do it in the morning when
- 7:50we go from 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, just because of the heat, trying
- 7:54to get them out of that. So they're going to grab water
- 7:58from there. Those kids are going to take
- 7:59them to the next station. So the next station is going to
- 8:03be our hurdle station. So those third and 4th graders
- 8:05are going to go #1 they're going to go to sprints.
- 8:07Then #2 at about 9:40, they're going to go over and they're
- 8:11going to do hurdles. Now, obviously, we can't have
- 8:13them doing real hurdles. So we have the breakaway
- 8:15hurdles, and we have them on the very lowest level.
- 8:18So we teach them how to get over.
- 8:19We teach them about the trail leg.
- 8:21We teach them about all those different aspects of hurdling.
- 8:23And then we let them hurdle over one or two or two hurdles and we
- 8:26let them race and do some fun things like that.
- 8:28So once again, that's another period.
- 8:30It's going to take about 35 minutes.
- 8:31So it's going to bring us to about 10:15.
- 8:34At 10:15, we're going to break for that day.
- 8:37So now they've done 2 stations. We're going to break.
- 8:39We're going to bring them up to the cafeteria area and we're
- 8:42going to give them, we're going to get them snacks.
- 8:44So we, we sell snacks or they can bring snacks on their own.
- 8:47Every snack that we sell is just going to be a dollar.
- 8:50So with some Gatorades, waters, you know, snacks, whatever it
- 8:53might be, whatever they they want.
- 8:54And while they're eating snacks, what we do to get them excited
- 8:57about the sport is we play old race videos or our highlight
- 9:01videos that we get done throughout the year.
- 9:03So we might play New Balance nationals where we set a
- 9:05national record. We might play a four by four
- 9:07from the state championship where we won a state
- 9:09championship. We might play last season's
- 9:11highlight video, whatever it might be, just videos showing
- 9:14them cupboards in high school and what we've been able to
- 9:16accomplish over the last few years.
- 9:17They really get into it and they're all yelling and
- 9:19screaming. Some of them have brothers and
- 9:20sisters that are running things like that.
- 9:23So they really get into it. But it's really a time so we can
- 9:26get a snack, we can get some liquids in our system, things
- 9:29like that and give us time to kind of recover before we go
- 9:33back outside. So usually we're in for about
- 9:353035 minutes. So we'll go back outside about
- 9:3710 fifty, 11:00. So we'll go back down and we'll
- 9:42usually play some type of game, whatever that might be.
- 9:44So a lot of years we've had water balloon fights, we've had
- 9:49fights where they all bring their water guns and we have
- 9:50water gun fights. We've played, you know,
- 9:52different types of games on the track or whatever.
- 9:54So try to end the day on a on a very fun, fun filled way to kind
- 9:58of end that day at each and every day.
- 10:00So on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we really try to do
- 10:02that to have fun at the end of the day.
- 10:05So on that first day, they're they were able to learn sprints,
- 10:08they're able to learn hurdles. And then day 2 they're going to
- 10:13come back. They'll get there at 8:00.
- 10:14We'll have a very quick meeting about 5 minutes.
- 10:16Then they're going to get warmed up.
- 10:18So now we're going to start at 8:20.
- 10:19So we had a little bit more time since on Monday we started at
- 10:228:50. So that kind of took one of the
- 10:24one of the areas away. So their first stop on, if
- 10:28you're a third grader, your first stop on Tuesday is going
- 10:30to be going to high jump. So we're going to teach them how
- 10:32to high jump, teach them some, some drills, some circle drills,
- 10:35some some different things like that.
- 10:37We have the, the box. So we have them jump off the
- 10:39box, over the bar, over the bungee, so on and so forth.
- 10:42So just, you know, some high jump drills, get them, you know,
- 10:44learning what the sport even is or, or anything like that.
- 10:48So they'll do that once again about 3540 minutes.
- 10:51Then we'll get a 5 minute water break from there.
- 10:54They're going to go to throws. All right, So now they've
- 10:56learned sprints, now they've learned hurdles, they've done
- 11:00high jump. Now they're going to go to
- 11:01throws. And so when they get to throws,
- 11:03they're going to do shot and disc.
- 11:05So we have some fun games over there.
- 11:06Obviously we don't have shots or discs that they are able to use
- 11:11because they weigh too much. So we're going to get them
- 11:13softballs or tennis balls or baseballs, things like that.
- 11:17So we can teach them the right form and how to, how to shot put
- 11:20instead of actually throw it like a baseball, so on and so
- 11:23forth. But we're able to do that in a
- 11:25safe environment. And we'll, we'll play some games
- 11:27with them where we'll put some ropes out there in circles or
- 11:31we'll put cones out there or whatever it might be and see who
- 11:34can make it into the circle or who can do you know, different
- 11:37things like that. So we'll have some fun while
- 11:39we're teaching them the core concepts of both shop put and
- 11:42discus. So that would be station 4 for
- 11:44them. And then the last station of the
- 11:47day, once again, they'll break for water.
- 11:49Their next station is going to be the horizontal jumps.
- 11:52So they're going to look at long jump and triple jump at that
- 11:57point. So we're going to go through
- 11:58some different drills. They're going to get in the
- 11:59sand, they're going to learn how to land in the sand, you know,
- 12:02all those little things like that.
- 12:03And for a third 4th grader, obviously it's going to be way
- 12:06less than if we have our 9th graders out there or 8th graders
- 12:09who have been through camp a lot.
- 12:10So we'll kind of progress those drills for them just based on
- 12:13their ages and, and, and things like that.
- 12:16So they'll do that. And that'll be 3 stations on
- 12:19Wednesday. After that third station, we'll
- 12:21go back up again. We'll do our snack time, still
- 12:23playing videos, still doing all of that, letting them get, you
- 12:27know, watch those videos, get a snack, whatever, come back down.
- 12:31We'll have a different game for them on on that day.
- 12:34Then they'll come back on Wednesday.
- 12:36And when they come back on Wednesday, same thing.
- 12:38Check in process, talk to them, get them warm up.
- 12:40And once again, we're at like 820 at about 8:20.
- 12:44We're going to let them go to their next station, which is
- 12:46going to be distance. So they're going to go long
- 12:49jump, triple jump. They're going to go to our
- 12:50distance station where they're going to learn more about
- 12:52distance and the different events that are in distance and
- 12:55really want to talk more about, you know, it's a 400 meter
- 12:58track. If you run 2 laps, that's an
- 13:00800. If you run four, that's a 16, so
- 13:02on and so forth. So we're going to do that.
- 13:04And then they're going to go to their last station of all where
- 13:07we actually let them all try pole vault.
- 13:10So they're all they're going to get to learn and all of those
- 13:13different events after that will go up.
- 13:15And then our last day, our last on Wednesday, our last little
- 13:18event, instead of playing with water or playing games like
- 13:20that, we do a scavenger hunt with all of them.
- 13:23But it's all dealing with track things.
- 13:25So they get these cards where they'll start at one spot.
- 13:28And when they get that card, it'll read something like go to
- 13:30where the records are kept. And so they'll run over to our
- 13:33to our records board. So they get to see some of the
- 13:35records and things like that. And then from there they'll get
- 13:37another clue. Go to the starting line from for
- 13:40the 400 for the 400 meter dash, then they'll have to go to the
- 13:44start line there and then we'll say go to where you jump high
- 13:47and that's where they'll they'll run over to high jump and get
- 13:49their next car it's on and so forth.
- 13:50So we try to do a little game like that where they get to run
- 13:53around learning more about the sport, learning we're starting
- 13:56where the events start and, and things like that.
- 13:59So they, they kind of get the concept there and that's kind of
- 14:01how we finish on Wednesday. On Thursday, what we do is we
- 14:05bring everybody in, we get them all warmed up and we do a mock
- 14:08meet. This is when we're going to
- 14:09invite all of our parents out. So at this point, they've
- 14:12learned everything from track and field.
- 14:14They've learned sprints, they've learned hurdles, they've learned
- 14:16distance, they've learned pole vault, they've learned it all.
- 14:19And so we're going to allow them to have a, a mock meet at this
- 14:22point. So we're going to, we're going
- 14:24to have our kids all out there timing each lane.
- 14:27Obviously we're not going to bring out the fat timer and any
- 14:29of that. We're just going to hand time
- 14:31everything. But what happens is we'll start
- 14:32with the third graders. They're going to go, they're
- 14:34going to race, they'll get their hundred, we'll time it, we'll
- 14:37give them each a card. The card's going to have their
- 14:40name on it, and the card's going to have the 100.
- 14:42And then we're going to write their time, so 1856.
- 14:46And then the 4th grade's going to go 5th grade, so on and so
- 14:48forth. And everybody's going to run the
- 14:49100. Then after the 100, everyone's
- 14:53going to get to run the 400 or the 800.
- 14:56They get to choose whichever one they want to do.
- 14:58Once again, when they complete their race, we'll write down
- 15:01their time for them, and then everyone will go run a 200.
- 15:04All right, so that'll be the time trial for the track events.
- 15:07Once again, writing everything down for them.
- 15:09They get to keep their card, so they know.
- 15:11And if they keep all their cards, they'll know from year to
- 15:13year how much they've improved from 1 camp to the next camp.
- 15:16Then after we're done with the running events, we open up all
- 15:19the field events. So we have our kids disperse and
- 15:22then the kids are allowed to go go to whichever fueled event
- 15:24that they choose to go to. They can go try high jump, which
- 15:27we only do the bungee. We don't actually put a bar up.
- 15:28They can go to pole vault. Once again, a bungee, not a bar.
- 15:31They can go to long jump and try to get a mark for long jump and
- 15:35they can go to shot put with the younger kids throwing a softball
- 15:39or a tennis ball, not an actual shot put, and they can get a
- 15:41mark there. Once again, we mark all of their
- 15:44cards. We come together at the end of
- 15:46camp and we give our camp MVPS out.
- 15:49So we usually do it one boy MVP, one girl MVP, just who we saw
- 15:53what's the best from the week, and we just try to get them
- 15:55really excited. If they're in middle school, we
- 15:58talk about the cross country season that's coming up and how
- 16:01they can get involved with the middle school cross country
- 16:03team. If they're not, If they're in
- 16:04middle school and they're not doing cross country, we talk
- 16:07about when our offseason training starts for our middle
- 16:09school, which is usually in that November, December time frame,
- 16:12somewhere in there where they can get started with the season
- 16:14starting in February. So getting them involved in
- 16:16that. If they're younger kids, we
- 16:18start talking about different places that they can go to start
- 16:21getting training and things like that to be better track and
- 16:23field athletes. So we found that the camp does
- 16:26wonders for our kids. They love coming to the camp
- 16:28every year. They love being with each other,
- 16:30but they love being with our coaching staff and our kids and
- 16:33just learning more and more about the sport of track and
- 16:35field every year. I think it does great things for
- 16:38us as a program because we're able to fundraise from it.
- 16:41Also, what we're able to do is we're able to introduce a sport
- 16:44that most of these kids don't get introduced to until they get
- 16:47to middle school or high school, just because it's not the sport
- 16:51that everybody does when they're young.
- 16:52Usually when you're young, you're playing soccer, baseball,
- 16:54flag football, whatever that might be.
- 16:56So it's really good for us to be able to get out there, get into
- 16:58the community and let them know what we're able to do.
- 17:01So I think it's done great wonders for our program.
- 17:05And I think for you guys, if, if any of you guys need any help
- 17:09with anything like that and, and you want to start a camp or
- 17:11whatever, you know, send me an e-mail.
- 17:14My e-mail is Dustin dot Allen at UCPS dot K12 dot NC dot US, or
- 17:20you can only send me something on Twitter.
- 17:22My Twitter tag is at Cuddy track.
- 17:25We post a lot of the stuff that we do on at Cuddy track.
- 17:28We post, you know, all kinds of stuff that that we're doing.
- 17:30We'll post information about our camp.
- 17:32We'll post videos, pictures and things like that from camp this
- 17:35year if that's something you're really interested in.
- 17:37But if you want to send me Adm or anything like that and you
- 17:39want to get camp set up, more than welcome to send me Adm and
- 17:43we can get in touch. And I can kind of tell you a
- 17:44little bit more details about if you might be worried about
- 17:48insurance or if you might be worried about the forms the
- 17:50parents fill out or any of that. Obviously, this was kind of a
- 17:53shortened version of what we do and how we run the camp
- 17:56specifically and our why. But if you want any more details
- 18:01or anything like that, please feel free to DM me.
- 18:02Once again, that's at Cuddy Track and that is on X if you
- 18:06guys want to DM me there. So I appreciate you guys listen
- 18:09to this. I appreciate Mike for letting me
- 18:11come on again. It's always awesome to be able
- 18:13to share kind of what we do and what makes cusperts and track
- 18:16and feel great. So I appreciate all you guys.
- 18:18Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
- 18:22episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
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