Talawanda High School holds summer sports camps

Each summer, Talawanda High School hosts multiple sports camps for kids from first to eighth grade. These camps serve to both introduce young children to a new sport and develop older kids in preparation for the high school level of athletics. 

Willow Bellman, a 10-year-old at the girls’ basketball camp, enjoyed learning the fundamentals of the sport and playing on a team. Her grandpa, Bob Gardner, watched her shoot free throws at the end of practice. 

“It was fun,” Willow said. “It was a lot of skills and working on encouraging people.”

The turnout for the first day of camp on June 3 impressed Zach Stapleton, the varsity girls’ basketball head coach. He noticed an improvement from last year and said the energy in the gym helped to keep things fun. 

“I think it’s pretty typical for our camps,” Stapleton said. “We had a great turnout. We were up around 15 from last year. I thought the players brought some really positive energy and essentially acted as big sisters to the younger ones, and I think that helps.”

The coaches split the camp into two groups: first-through-fourth graders and fifth-through-eighth graders. The younger group focused on passing, shooting and cheering on teammates, while the older group scrimmaged and learned plays and schemes from assistant coaches.

The main goal of the camp is to make sure the kids have fun while learning how to play. The coaches accomplished this with a rule that everyone must follow: you’re either cheering or clapping at all times.

“‘A quiet gym is a losing gym,’ is what we go by,” Stapleton said. “We want a loud gym, we want it to be positive, and I think that helps with some of the smiles.”

During the camp from June 3-5, Stapleton relied on some of his high school players, including senior guard Grace Richardson, to help with the kids. Richardson said she liked the opportunity to help, especially since she went to the same camp when she was younger.

“It’s really nice, especially when I think back to when I was in these camps,” Richardson said. “Being able to give younger girls the same experience that I got growing up and knowing how much these camps made me want to continue playing.”

“It might just be a piece of paper, but it’s an achievement that they can take home and hang on the wall, and they seem to love it,” Stapleton said. “More importantly, it gives them something to shoot for the next day … They’ll come back the next day, and they’ll try to earn that award.”

Varsity baseball head coach Matthew Lykins also held a baseball camp from June 3-5. The kids ranged widely in age, with some as young as kindergarten. 

Lykins opens the camp to anyone regardless of experience. He regularly coaches both kids who have played baseball and kids who have never played. 

“I always make sure that I take that one because they can be the most challenging,” Lykins said. “I’m totally open to a mom or dad emailing me and saying, ‘My [child] is interested in baseball, but we don’t know if it’s for him or her … is it okay if she or he just tries it?’ We can do that, but I have to remember, especially with the little guys, if I say, ‘Go to second base,’ they may not even know where that is.”

Similar to Stapleton, Lykins relies on volunteers, many of whom are former or current high school players, to help during the camp. These players may only have a few weeks before summer ball starts, but they sign up to help out on three weekday mornings, which Lykins said shows the kind of people the Talawanda Brave are. 

The camp also serves as a chance for the coaching staff to prepare potential future players. When these players try out for the Brave, Lykins hopes that they already know how to play the sport. Instead, his goal is to teach them the Talawanda system of playing. 

Above all else, the ultimate goal is to let the kids have a good time. Instead of just practicing, the kids finish the camp each day with a scrimmage involving the high school players. An important aspect for Lykins is giving the kids the same opportunities to play that he had growing up. 

“When I was growing up, you could ride your bike around the neighborhood in the summertime during the day, and you would find enough guys to have a game,” Lykins said. “How many of these kids are really able to have the opportunity to just be on a baseball field without their parents and just playing? I think that’s kind of lost. That’s something I really treasure.”

Beyond girls’ basketball and baseball, Talawanda hosted camps for boys’ basketball, bowling, soccer, track and field/cross country, girls’ volleyball, boys’ golf and swim and dive. 

Several summer athletic camps have concluded already, but there are more to come. Talawanda’s soccer camp is set to run June 16-19, volleyball camps are set for June 23 and 24-26, and the boys summer golf program, open to sixth through eighth graders only, has practice sessions throughout June and July starting on June 16. For more information and to sign up, visit www.talawandaathletics.org/sports-camps.