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Pelham football coach Mike Vickery and his staff taught local youth coaches how to prepare their players to be future Panthers at the first Pelham Youth Coaches Clinic. (For the Reporter/Jeremy Raines)

By TYLER RALEY | Special to the Reporter

PELHAM – The coaching staff of the Pelham Panthers hosted coaches from across the community for the Pelham Youth Coaches Clinic on Saturday, July 15.

Most of the 25 coaches that attended are involved in coaching the Pelham youth football teams and got to learn the methods that the high school coaches use on their players in everyday practices.

For head coach Mike Vickery, this first ever session was a great opportunity to help the coaches build a great relationship with the football program so that their kids can succeed in the future.

“For us, to make ourselves available to those guys that are volunteering their time to come out and work with kids. We want to make that a great experience for the kids and the coaches and whatever we can do to help, that’s what we’re here for,” coach Vickery said.

The coaches spent the morning learning how to teach their kids the basics of football, such as how to tackle and how to block, so that the kids could be well versed in those methods as they grow in their careers.

The Pelham coaches wanted the ultimate goal from this clinic to be a consistent level of growth and development for both the coaches and the kids as they rise in the program.

“We want to make it an experience from the time they start to the time they finish where they are all on the same team, all the way through,” coach Vickery said. “It’s a fun experience, but this is about just really getting to know these coaches and opening up the dialogue to get better all the way through our programs.”

With the understanding that the minds of the younger players learn differently than the older ones, the coach Vickery and the rest of his staff saw this as a mutually beneficial opportunity to share ideas and make concepts adaptable for the future Panthers.

“What we want to stress is that this is the way that we do things here, and then share ideas on how do we take our model and move it to second graders and third graders,” coach Vickery said. “We want them to be exposed to the way that we do things, then let’s kind of adapt that to the way that you do things within that program. I think it’s a great back and forth.”

The knowledge that these coaches took away from this clinic will be beneficial for these coaches. For the Pelham football program, it will also make for a great long-term future from a numbers standpoint.

“The more you can have kids around coaches and solid people, the better. Only good good things are going to come out of that,” coach Vickery said. “I think we have a very strong community here and to get that plugged into everything that we’re doing, we have to find ways to do that and this is one of those ways.”

“Football is a game of numbers and participation, and you’re always fighting that. So I think the more participation you get from younger groups, the better chance you have of those kids staying together, continuing to play through middle school, continuing to play through high school and that’s how you establish strong classes as they come through.”

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