Chinook Sugarbeeter Football Head Coach Mike Jones, along with Assistant Coaches Roy Kelly and Scott Schmitt took 24 kids down to Bozeman to take part in the Montana State University Bobcat Eight-man Football Camp.
Camp instruction was provided to the coaches and players by the MSU Coaching Staff and the Bobcat players instructed and officiated individual drills. "We had 24 kids going to camp this year, we had one of the biggest groups if not the biggest there," commented Jones afterwords.
The Sugarbeeter bus headed for Bozeman last Wednesday and stayed on campus. Daily camp activity included two to three sessions, "It was great because the kids had time to work on individual skills and us coaches could learn some new drills. Then we got to do things like skelly, and situations against other teams," said Jones
The 'Beeters accomplished a lot in getting the summer schedule started on the right foot, "I loved seeing our kids compete and work with the college staff. I know our team definitely captures the attention of the staff and athletes at times. Also I loved seeing all our kids involved and invested. We told our kids to get better each session and we had a couple kids that couldn't complete because of previous injuries but they were at every individual and team session getting themselves better as well as helping their teammates get better," added Jones.
With the start of any new season in high school athletics, getting the incoming players up to speed and moving returning veterans into new leadership rolls is always the first thing to address and to get the opportunity to get started in June is huge, "We had a great turnout of young kids. Some of them got mixed in with our older kids and that was great because they got to see the speed and physicality of the varsity game early so that way the start of the season it isn't such a shock," Jones stated.
Even in the summer injuries can and often happen, "We had a couple injuries but nothing major. They had their athletic training staff down there to assist the athletes."
Getting better is always the goal with any team at any level and Jones certainly feels his team accomplished that, "I think we definitely got a ton better as a team and individually. It is always great to have the team building that going to a camp brings and then we have kids who definitely took full advantage of getting better each session. I also loved seeing the confidence of our kids grow as well. We as a coaching staff put an emphasis on confidence this year and I think that it grew the more we got into camp and we're competing with the some of the best teams in camp." Overall Jones' assessment of the camp, "I thought the camp was great. The kids loved it too. Already talking to the MSU staff and there are some new things in the works for next year and I definitely think we will be attending again in the future."