When Kevin White took over as the head football coach at Kinnelon High School in 2006 he knew that he faced a tough task.
The Colts football team had not experienced recent success and for him, coming from one of the best programs in the area, he had to have a plan to turn things around.
One part of his strategy was to do all he could to help the youth programs in town get the most out of what they were doing at teaching. After all, those teams are the future of Colt high school football, so for one week in July, White held a football camp at the school for youngsters that were players in the recreation leagues.
"It’s a three hour instructional camp for all ages third grade through eighth grade," says White. "We have a large variety of younger kids that come from town to learn some football."
Here they were taught the basics of football, how to stand, line up, block, and tackle. No intricate systems were taught here because White thinks that getting the basics right make all the difference. He wants to make them better football players.
"I’m not going to teach them schemes, they have great coaches down in the rec department to teach the kids that," says White. "I want to teach them good technique so they can become better. What we are teaching is universal; playing man-to-man coverage for a secondary player is the same everywhere in America."
The camp is run through the school, which they do for every sport and White sees this as an opportunity for him and his staff as well.
"We get to teach and form relationships with those younger kids in town that really are the future of the High School athletic department," say White.
While he and the coaches are there to teach, in the end, White wants the kids to have fun. By making this a pleasurable experience, his hope is they will stick with the game as they mature.
"I think right now, in our town, we need to increase the participation in football," says White. "The more kids that play, the better off the town will be in football. So I want the kids to have a lot of fun so that when they go back to their friends, maybe we can get a couple of converts."