Lil’ Cubs learn new skills at OES football camp

It’s summer in the Big O and that means plenty of sports camps. The camps offer Olney Elementary School [OES] children the opportunity to learn skills relating to football, softball, baseball, volleyball and basketball. The camps take place all summer with one sport per week offering those interested in sports a chance to see what all it takes to be a player and sharpen existing skills to already seasoned athletes.

This week’s camp was hosted by Olney High School’s [OHS] head football coach, Jason Powers. Coach Powers along with fellow coach Casey Keeter and a slew of seasoned Varsity Football Cubs put on a mini training camp for Cub football. The goal, according to Coach Powers, is to teach a few fundamentals but more importantly to get children excited for football. The camp had several stations set up teaching future Cubs different fundamentals, a forty-yard dash for receivers and special teams, a throwing station to see who has skills as a future quarterback, triple option-for future running backs and centers, a catching station and the Cub blow-up helmet tunnel to see what it feels like to run out of the tunnel as a Cub.

“This year we have some different competitions: best hands competition, I call it the ‘stickum competition,’ some quarterback accuracy contests and then we’re going to start teaching these kids how to run a triple-option offense because hopefully that’s what they’re doing whenever they get to high school,” Coach Powers said. “There’ll be some one-on-one competitions and different things like that just to get the kids used to competing and having fun at the same time. At the end of football camp, we give out footballs, awards, football camp shirts and a photo of participants running out of the Cub tunnel with a football as a memento.”