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The Montevallo Bulldogs brought back their youth football camp to help invest in the future generation by teaching skills and building relationships. (Contributed/Savannah Upton)

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

MONTEVALLO – Ahead of new head coach Garrett Langer’s first season, the Montevallo Bulldogs built relationships with the community and the future generation of football players with the return of their youth football camp on July 16 and 17 at Theron Fisher Stadium.

With the camp returning on short notice after years away, Langer was satisfied with getting 20 kids out for the two-day camp and hopes to build on that for the future.

“I thought it went well,” Langer said. “I think Boren did one his first year and I think we had like 10 kids show up. We had 20 show up this time, which is not a huge number but it was kind of planned last minute. I’ve probably put some stuff out on it about a month ago and really decided to do it then, but we were glad to have 20 kids show up and they got to work with our varsity staff. All our coaches were involved with it, and it was a lot of fun.”

The camp came about as a way for the team to give back to the youth programs, which are expanding this season into flag football. Langer knows how valuable it is to invest in the younger kids since they will one day don the blue and orange of Montevallo.

“There’s been some parents asking for our high school staff to get involved with our youth and that’s something that I want to do,” Langer said. “I want to get involved with our youth programs, especially, we just started a flag football league, and our tackle football league has always been popular in Montevallo, so just trying to extend that olive branch and show that we care because they are our future.”

During the camp, the kids got to work through offensive and defensive drills to improve their skills on both sides of the ball.

On offense, the campers worked on throwing and catching as well as running back skills like ball security, catching a ball from the backfield and agility stations.

Then, on the other side of the ball on defense, they worked on tackling fundamentals through drills and hitting dummies, which Langer said the kids really enjoyed.

Throughout the entire two days, the kids learned using the same drills and techniques that Montevallo’s varsity players learn. Because of that, it only made sense that Bulldogs players helped teach the campers, and that’s exactly what they did.

The coaches estimated that between 15 and 20 players helped lead the camp, taking advantage of the smaller group to give the kids one-on-one instruction and teach the players who will one day be in their shoes.

The players already have great bonds with the kids in the community from living in the same town as them, but Langer was proud of how they took those relationships to another level by teaching them the skills they’ll need to be successful.

“It was cool to watch,” Langer said. “A lot of them, they live in the same neighborhoods and Montevallo is so small so they see these kids every day just on the street or, if they go over to the elementary school or wherever. So, they already know them, but actually watching especially our seniors get to really work with our youth was pretty cool to see. They assisted us in drills and then they would demonstrate and then they would work with the kids one-on-one, kind of as they were waiting to go into the drill so that they would know exactly what to do.”

The hope is that the camp helps kids get excited about and remain engaged with football as they grow up. Langer knows the challenges that football faces in smaller towns as kids participate in other activities for various reasons, and he hopes that engaging with the community helps reverse that.

“Our goal is to increase our numbers and interest,” Langer said. “Football, outside of your big schools, numbers are declining kind of across the board and we want people to continue to play and when they get to middle school and high school, they’re being pulled in so many directions, we want them to consider football. So, that’s our main goal.”

With the camp focusing more on fundamentals and skills like passing, running, catching and basic tackling, the team’s goal was to show kids the fun aspects of football to help achieve that goal of keeping them interested in the game, and they believe they achieved that this week.

“It can be fun,” Langer said about football. “You don’t have to hit and bang all day in pads. You can still achieve the same goal in these drills that we’re doing, tackling dummies and that kind of stuff.”

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