Bulldawgs football hold Lil Dawgs Camp

By SEAN HANEY
Cove Leader-Press

With the heat high and the energy even higher the Lil Dawgs football camp kicked off on Monday. 
For his first year as head coach of the Bulldawgs, Coach Johnson had 40 kids attend his Lil Dawgs football camp ranging from second grade through sixth grade. 
“This camp is important because number one, it unifies our community. Number two, it shows our young people that we’re a giant family and that you can have a lot of fun doing something that’s really difficult but when you work together you get that sense of victory and togetherness that most don’t have, football builds unity,” Johnson stated.
With current coaches and current high school football student athletes as the mentors in this camp, it is bound to be a learning experience for all who attended.
Joseph Carpenter, an upcoming junior at Copperas Cove High School, attended camp from fourth through sixth grade.
Carpenter said, “I loved playing football while meeting a bunch of new people from all of the other schools in the area.”
He said that knowing people and learning the fundamentals were the best things he took away from the camp.
Coach Johnson started off the evening with an inspirational speech with everyone gathered around talking about what football means as a Dawg.
The student athletes divided by grades. With all of them separated into the respective lines, the coaches instructed and demonstrated how to do specific warmups and stretches. They moved on to drills, from getting their knees high going over the agility ladder, to sprinting, side stepping and backpedaling around cones.
Once the Lil Dawgs went through every drill, they were then moved into position drills for 10 minutes apiece and everyone got a chance to play quarterback, wide receiver, running back and offensive line.
Jayce Sprague attended for the first time this year and said, “It gives me more notion to be a better Quarterback.”  
Meeting the coaches was his favorite thing about the camp.
Albert Martinez III attended for the first time as well and said, “I like working hard and working as a team and bonding with my team.” 
His favorite things about the camp were the running back drills and wide receiver drills. 
Joe McKnight, first time attendee, said his main focuses on the camp were to catch better and get better at throwing. McKnight also said ice cream at the end was his favorite thing about the camp.
This year’s Lil Dawgs camp MVP was first-time attendee Jayce Sprague.
Camp took place Tuesday with defensive drills and Wednesday with special team drills from 6-8 p.m. 
CCISD is also hosting the following camps:
Football Camp, Saturday July 23, from 9 a.m. – noon for 7th-8th grade.
Softball Camp, Monday, July 25 – Wednesday, July 27 from 5:30-8:30 p.m., grades 4–9.