Absolutely the best camp I ever attended. I would attend it over any D1 camp if you are not a major D1 prospect. Funnest and best organized camp held in the state, IMO.

CoachJ can correct me if I'm wrong, but in reality it is designed by the colleges because D1 schools are not allowed to attend events such as this, so it gives the D2, D3 and NAIA schools a great opportunity to see players up close and personal. With colleges having limited budgets to travel, they love the opportunity to travel to one place and see many players at once. In addition, I think CoachJ sends information on the players to other schools that are not in attendance.

 

It was developed completely with the needs of Small Colleges (D2, D3, NAIA) AND kids in mind.

 

It's a win for the colleges with, as you said, recruiting budgets too low to get to see many kids play live. Also, consider that most of these small schools don't host their own camp.

 

It's a win for the kids: instead of traveling to 10-15 different camps (impossible due to time/$$ restraints) they can get a big bang for their buck at one stop.

 

We do send the results to colleges that usually attend but cannot this year due to some kind of conflict.

 

This year, we're going to try and do more FILMING of the drills and 1on1's to then upload into hudl and send out.

It was developed completely with the needs of Small Colleges (D2, D3, NAIA) AND kids in mind.

 

It's a win for the colleges with, as you said, recruiting budgets too low to get to see many kids play live. Also, consider that most of these small schools don't host their own camp.

 

It's a win for the kids: instead of traveling to 10-15 different camps (impossible due to time/$$ restraints) they can get a big bang for their buck at one stop.

 

We do send the results to colleges that usually attend but cannot this year due to some kind of conflict.

 

This year, we're going to try and do more FILMING of the drills and 1on1's to then upload into hudl and send out.

 

 

This really adds tremendous value to the camp. Having film against strong competition really can seal the deal with a recruiter. This can be important because there are those that have negative bias towards the level of competition in Kentucky.

If you are not careful, you are going to put NUC out of business! I for one, would not shed a tear!

I hope you are prepared for a large response!

If you are not careful, you are going to put NUC out of business! I for one, would not shed a tear!

 

The two of us have completely different reasons for the camps we run.

 

And don't worry, they're making money hand-over-fist so I doubt they'll be out of business anytime soon (while 100% of anything we 'make' goes directly back to help our players who need help with paying the cost of camp, and other required expenses).

I hope you are prepared for a large response!

 

We're going to do our best. 3 years in a row with 65-75 and then last year having over 130 (not to mention a lightning storm+monsoon 5 minutes after we started) really tested our preparation. I thought it was a fiasco but ended up getting great compliments from campers, their parents, and the college coaches.

 

Limiting it this year to ONLY rising Juniors and Seniors should help with the numbers, allow us to give a little more individual attention, and let the college coaches focus a little better.

 

We truly had back then (and currently have) a tremendous group of coaches on staff and parents who really do the hardest work in putting it on. Our guy doing the film doesn't even have a child on the team -- completely volunteers. Ballard's a special place and I'm a lucky guy to be there.

The two of us have completely different reasons for the camps we run.

 

And don't worry, they're making money hand-over-fist so I doubt they'll be out of business anytime soon (while 100% of anything we 'make' goes directly back to help our players who need help with paying the cost of camp, and other required expenses).

 

Yes , you do have different motivations, but , none the less, you are delivering a much better product than NUC. I sense entrepreneurial opportunity here, and there is nothing wrong with making money as long as you are delivering value. Getting kids on tape and getting exposure to folks who actually have scholarships available to offer makes this a high value service.

 

Frankly, there are too many folks out there who prey in the ignorance of parents and their kids. Expanding your model to displace some of these folks would be a profound blessing!

In regards to "preying on the ignorance..." I think it's important to help parents of the kids at our camp w/ some of the most basic details of this recruiting game.

 

Following registration, from 5:15 to 5:45 (while campers warm up) I give a brief overview (along with a handout with tips--including Ram's great letter posted on BGP previously) of what parents/kids need to know about recruiting process. Then, the college coaches field general questions about recruiting at their level -- some things are different than what they might know about D1 recruiting.

 

These coaches are great also about entertaining questions individually about their own school's program. Really makes it almost like a "college fair" situation.

 

To your point, I'd love to see these pop up in different areas of the state; maybe that's something I can work on during the Dead Period...

Went to small prospects camp at Ballard yesterday was pretty good camp. Little unorganized but was impressive how they changed gears when the rain came without skipping a beat. I think there were about 100 kids there and I seen a handful of coaches. Spoke with a few and son got some contact info. Only critique was it appeared understaffed. Don't know if they got more kids than expected but this is most likely the reasoning for the unorganized feel. other than that which wasn't horrible at all the camp was a success. Wish there were more of these small school camps like this one it was greatly beneficial.

 

thanks Coach J look forward to coming back

I would like to see fewer combine events, perhaps even none at all. Position drills and one on ones are what the coaches come to see and many were leaving/left by 9:00.

bball I agree. Way to much time doing the measurables. I think this is part of the understaffed i was talking about because it took long time at each station. I know at the 40 they only had one guy writing down times but had 2 runners going at a time. that caused some delays in getting everyone through.

 

Only had maybe 30 mins of 1 on 1s. From what i seen there were some talented athletes there competing in the competition part.

All great suggestions. Definitely could use more help -- we're at a time of transitioning several new coaching staff members onto our staff and a few were unable to help due to prior obligations. Small amount of time in 1on1's was unfortunately unavoidable because of when we got lightning -- mandatory to get indoors for 30 minutes so we had to go to our "Plan B" to keep the kids doing something coaches could evaluate. (When we get that 100yard indoor facility we'll be set!)

 

College coaches seemed to get some good leads on kids though and I could've kept going with the 1on1's all night.

 

Will be working on the video that was taken of the kids during our dead period and sending that out.

 

Someone there last night (bball guy?) asked a question about camps kids could still go to. I'm doing research on that and will post what I find on here, but I got a spam email today about one (not an endorsement--just something for anyone to check on for themselves if interested. I'm not sure of location, but email came from Maryland). www.FootballCamps.com

Coach J even with some of the confusion and weather it was still a good camp. Dont want anyone to get the wrong idea, it was successful and we are looking forward to coming back. Please let us know when you are having the next one and we will have some of our kids there.

Usually , the guest coaches run some of the drills and supervise some the one on ones. I know I saw some of the guest coaches recording combine data, but thought they could have been more utilized. This would also help keep them engaged on evaluation.