PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - For the 16th time, the annual Champ Camp has returned to Panama City. Day one of the camp kicking off earlier today at 8:30 over at Tommy Oliver Stadium. Current Senior Executive of the Miami Dolphins Champ Kelly running the show once again. Kelly a former Graceville alum looking to give back to the community of Northwest Florida.
Campers today, battling hot conditions where they had multiple water breaks, but, still working hard. The camp focusing on teaching the young boys, and girls, the fundamentals of football while also teaching them important core values such as character, heart, attitude, motivation and pride or Champ.
“Yeah, it’s not that they have to come and do this. They get an opportunity to come and work with these amazing coaches who’ve come from all over the country to make them better to invest into them and that’s the thing that’s so important about this camp is it’s three different camps being run at once. We have an O-Line, D-Line camp, we have a middle school, high school skills camp and we have a younger kid camp that’s going on as well. So these coaches are managing this which is awesome.” Kelly said.
Over 300 campers attending this weekend, but Coach Kelly says that with the help of his amazing coaching staff this weekend, they are able to get the job done.
“They’re not paid, they’re flying and driving from all over the country. We had a guy drive in from Arkansas through the night. He hadn’t had a chance to go to bed. He showed up at this camp after parking his car and worked with our defensive backs. And that’s the kind of commitment that we have going on with these coaches and it’s amazing that these athletes get a chance to work with this caliber level of coaches. We have former collegiate head coaches, we have current collegiate players, current NFL players, current collegiate coaches, high school coaches around here and it is been a tremendous opportunity.” Kelly said.
The camp will continue Saturday from 8:30 in the morning until 1:30 in the afternoon.
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