Football camp means season almost here
As Tippecanoe head football coach Matt Burgbacher was greeting the youth campers as they arrived at camp Tuesday, July 7, you could see the look of anticipation on his face.
The Red Devils held their annual youth camp at the stadium, meaning we are just over two weeks from the start of the 2026 season.
Nearly 130 campers took part in the annual event, run by the high school coaching staff and current high school players. Burgbacher was pleased with how things went as the camp concluded and the season is right around the corner.
“The older guys are doing a great job, and I have been here long enough that these older guys used to be the little Devils or middle school camp kids. And now, they are the guys who are coaching them.”
“You saw a lot of smiles this week. They are playing football, but they were having fun doing it.”
One of the biggest things the older players took away from this camp was to develop their leadership roles. This will benefit the team when things kick off for real with practice the first week of August.
“You can teach and talk about leadership, but the best thing you can do is experience leadership,” Burgbacher said. “They are in charge of their groups. They have to coach these kids and the more you do it, the better you are going to be. The group leaders we have are in charge of ten kids. When they come to me and tell me they don’t listen…. I just tell them, ‘welcome to coaching’.”
For the week, the kids who attended camp got to learn all about the game.
“The biggest thing is to teach them that you can have fun playing the game and want to be here,” Burgbacher said. “We want them to learn the basics … how to tackle the right way, how to block. With the middle school kids, we are putting in some of our offense and defensive terminology.”
*Also last week, Tipp scrimmaged and practiced with Greenview and the Tipp coach was pleased at how that went for his kids.
“I walked off the field this morning as pleased as I could have been,” he said. “The growth I have seen from these kids from the first of June to July 7 has been tremendous. We saw the light flicker today of what we can do.”
“It was a very competitive two hours and it got intense, but a good intense.”
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