State champs host summer camp with good numbers

Months following their state championship at the Nutter Center, the Tippecanoe volleyball team was back on the court last week, but not necessarily to work on their game, rather to help the future stars work on theirs.

The 2026 Tipp volleyball camp took place at the high school at the end of last week, with over 60 campers participating in this annual event. The gym was divided into two courts based on grade level, and the current Red Devil athletes were a key part of making this a successful time for the young kids.

“As years go by, we are getting younger and younger kids coming to the camp, and this year we had over 20 kids in fifth grade and below, which we didn’t have in the past,” Tippecanoe coach Howard Garcia said. “Some of the kids are likely here because they are being pushed into athletics, but when I asked some of the kids why they are here, they said volleyball is really good at Tipp.”

“We have a lot of the kids from the middle school here, even though they already had their camp. They are here to get instruction from the high school staff along with the kids who are returning from the high school program.”

Garcia also thinks being state champions and the community support they received last year also helped bring in kids to camp this year.

“I think so,” he said. “That perked a lot of eyes and ears to what has been here for quite a while, and that will keep on driving us. As a public school, these kids just want to come here and participate to be part of an entertaining and exciting sport.”

In addition to teaching the fundamentals of the sport, Garcia also stated they are teaching the younger players two life lessons: how to behave with each other and being respectful with each other.

“That is something I have preached since I got here, everything starts with you respecting yourself and your opponent. We also want to make sure the older kids pass things on to the younger kids, and hopefully when they get older, they can pass it on.”

Garcia also thought it was important to teach his returning players leadership skills and working with the youth is a great chance for that.

“We divided the courts to have the older kids on one court and younger kids on the other,” Garcia said. “At the beginning, the kids in the program all tried to migrate over to where the older kids (middle school) were because they knew them a bit. We had to assign some to one court and some to the younger court, and they can flip, so everyone got some experience.”

Tipp now will be down for a couple of weeks before they have their preseason camp days in late July prior to the start of practice.