College boasting busy summer of camping

From the The Brunswick News

Reinaldo Valor wants to help young tennis players in the Golden Isles develop their talent. The College of Coastal Georgia men's and women's tennis coach also wants the college to be influential in that development.

To accomplish that goal, Valor is one of several Coastal Georgia coaches hosting camps at the college this summer.

"We're really just trying to help tennis in this area grow," Valor said. "It really helps develop the potential athletes we have in this area. There are a lot of young men and women who want to play tennis, and we're trying to give them the right direction to maximize their skills."

Coastal will also host a variety of basketball camps in June and a volleyball camp in July.

Valor's first CCGA tennis camp starts Monday and runs through Friday. The camp is open to middle school and high school players and takes place in half-day and full-day sessions. Half-day sessions cost $199 and last from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. daily while full-day sessions run to 2:30 p.m. daily and cost $250.

Valor said the camp will be beneficial not just for individual players, but for entire high school teams and coaches.

"Eventually, what I want the camp to be, and it's already starting to take shape, is have high school coaches come be part of the staff and bring their teams," Valor said. "The coaches come, the players from the high schools and middle schools come, and I also bring in some other outside staffing.

"One of the coaches we have is a colleague and a friend of mine, David Barron, who was the coach at Florida State for 10 years. I actually competed against him while he was coaching. Bringing in some other outside staff to help not only guide the high school coaches, but also work on things that the coaches and players are learning so they can carry it into their season is what we want the camps to be about. We're off to a good start for that."

The camp not only provides players a chance to improve their play, but it also gives Valor and assistant coach Steven Howard the chance to work with potential future players.

"We have three or four players who are definitely going to try out and might potentially make the team as walk-ons that are coming to the camp," Valor said.

"That's encouraging and is another by-product of what we're trying to do. Anybody that's at that level already, we definitely want to encourage them to come on out, get acclimated with myself and the university."

The college's tennis complex includes 12 courts, which Valor said is more than enough space to host the camp. Eventually, Valor would like to take the camp to a national level, with top college coaches and players providing instruction.

On the hardwood, Coastal Georgia men's assistant basketball coach James Frey is leading a variety of hoops camps over the next three weeks.

The action starts Thursday with high school squads coming in to play six games in three days at Howard Coffin Gym.

"We have a team camp where high schools come in and play at our place," Frey said. "Last year, we had 10 teams. This year we have 20. That kind of shows you how it's growing."

After the team camps, Coastal will host two individual camps June 18-22 and June 25-29. The camps are for players between the ages of 6 and 18, run from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily and cost $100 per camper. Families with more than one camper will receive a $10 discount, and those wishing to participate in both camps will get $10 off for the second camp.

This is the second year of the camp, which was started in 2011 with a goal of connecting the CCGA basketball program with the community, Frey said.

"When we first started doing them, community involvement was everything: building a rapport with the community, getting kids on our campus to see our facilities (and) become interested in our program and just to develop community relations between our athletic department and the community itself," Frey said.

Like Coastal's tennis camp, the basketball camp also gives coaches a chance to work with the basketball talent in the area.

"It gives you early access to the kids," Frey said. "You get to work with them first-hand as coaches. You kind of watch their development from year to year, and they remember you. If you see them out in the community, it's nothing for a kid to say "Hey, Coach Frey, I was at your camp," or see them with a camp T-shirt on. Something I saw a lot of this year was a lot of kids from camp at our games. To see that kind of accomplished our goal.

"We wanted these kids to be involved with our program, and I think that was a big success."

Frey said the individual camps will focus on working on fundamentals like passing, catching the ball, footwork, ball-handling and shooting.

"We start from the ground level and work our way up on every facet of the game."

Coastal volleyball coach Jeff Huebner will lead two girls volleyball camps in July. There will be a CCGA Youth All Skills Camp held July 19-21 at the college, which costs $70 per camper and will be open to rising fifth- through eighth-graders.

There will also be a July 24-26 camp for girls entering the eighth grade through the 12th grade. That camp costs $150 with overnight accommodations available at the college for an additional $100.

Both volleyball camps have a limit of 40 participants.

Sign-ups

To sign up for a College of Coastal Georgia sports camp, contact:

Tennis: Reinaldo Valor, 912-506-1639 or rvalor@ccga.edu

Basketball: James Frey, 912-222-7422

Volleyball: Jeff Huebner, 912-248-2357 or southeastvolleyballacademy@gmail.com

For more information, visit www.coastalgeorgiasports.com

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