Youth camp week means practice closing in
Last week brought together over 130 youth athletes from around Tipp City as the annual Tippecanoe football middle school and youth camps were held at the Tipp Park Stadium. That also means the start of the new high school football season is quickly approaching, as two-a-day practice begins in 16 days.
“It is great out here to have a football field full of kids,” Tippecanoe coach Matt Burgbacher said. “We have the young kids on one and and the middle school at the other end. We are doing a little bit different things but they are working with our high school players.”
“With the middle school guys, we are teaching our fundamentals, the things they need to be great at. Then after camp, they can work on them when they get into their training camp.
For the young kids, the key is to have fun playing the game of football and build those relationships with the older guys.”
“If they have fun, they will want to come back next year, and when they do get to that age where they could play football, they will want to try it because of their positive experience.”
Burgbacher said in addition to 130 young players, they also had about 50 of the high school players in attendance to work with the kids.”
While the younger kids are learning the very basics, as mentioned the junior high kids are working on the offensive and defensive schemes at a program level.
“We still want them to have fun and give them a taste of what’s to come when they get to the high school level,” Burgbacher said. “We are a developmental program so we need to have a very good program down to the pee wee and middle school levels.
These seniors were sixth graders when I took this job, and to see the growth they have had it’s not just happening from what we are doing here, it’s the work they are putting in outside.”
The Red Devils hosted Greeneview in a practice format last week along with 7-on-7 events at Chaminade Julienne and hosted Miami East in a very busy week.
“Our biggest thing for us is to continue to work, and getting guys reps and building our connection,” Burgbacher said. “We had a great practice this morning with Greeneview and they were 14-1 last season. Iron sharpens iron.”
Tipp opens practice on August 1.
