It was a great day for some football at the Kelly Bates Football Camp at St. Peter’s College on Apr. 30-May 1, 2016.
For the past 11 years, retired CFL player and HCI alumni, Kelly Bates, has loved coming out to Muenster to put on the camp.
For this year, 101 players came out from 28 communities to learn football skills, from as far away as Meadow Lake, North Battleford and Prince Albert to Melville, Wood Mountain and Regina, as well as Bruno, Watson, and 21 players from Humboldt.
The work and effort put in by the coaches and players made this years camp the best one yet, says Bates.
St. Peter’s College also has great facilities for the camp, says Bates.
“It has such a unique atmosphere. It’s all inclusive.”
Meeting rooms, field space, and indoor gym space are all within a 200 metre radius and are all things that Bates needed for the weekend.
“We’re very lucky to be out there,” says Bates.
The camp itself had one big life lesson first, and that is to put in maximum effort level.
In life, so many things are out of a persons’ control, says Bates. Their level of effort is something that they can control.
“Everything we coach at that camp is based around that. We coach effort level first and then technique.”
If anyone looking in their mirror can be happy with the level of effort they put in, then they can deal with anything else that life throws at them.
Having a film crew on the field, Bates says the coaches can help players develop their skill. The senior scrimmage match was also filmed.
Staying safe on the field is just like staying safe during any other sport. It is all about where your eyes are, says Bates.
“Your eyes determine so much of what happens to you...teaching kids to keep their eyes on what they’re doing, that’s a very lost skill set.”
Anyone can learn football skills and it is one game that is all-inclusive, says Bates.
It needs players with all sorts of body types, from the runners to the throwers to the powerhouses.
“When you bring a group of that many people together on a team, it’s amazing what striving for the same common goal can create in terms of teammates, teamwork, and dedication to getting something done.”
The camp was all male players but Bates says he welcomes the first female players that would want to take part in the event. The camp is open to anyone who wants to come.
“It comes down to how many female high school football players are out there and are they interested in coming.”
Without football, Bates does not know where he would have gone with his life.
He says he lacked direction in high school but he loved sports and loved competing and played any sport he could. He also had amazing teachers that did not give up on him, he says.
“Even though there were periods of time where I didn’t go to school for months on end, they stuck with me.”
Bates would go on to help the University of Saskatchewan win the Vanier Cup in 1998 and play for the BC Lions and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
Saskatchewan has football weaved into their identity, says Bates.
