KINGSTON — For the first 75 minutes of the inagural high school football camp in Kingston Buccaneers history, not one player touched a football Monday afternoon at the Kingston Middle School field. This was all done by design by Buccaneers head coach Dan Novick and his staff.
The first hour of camp saw 56 KHS football players participating in agility drills, form tackling, pursuit tackling as well as getting an introduction to the team’s defensive philosophy at each position from Novick before the squad split into groupings by position.
“We want to teach our players the basics at this camp,” Novick said. “We want them to be familiar with our schedule when they show up for practice in August. These agility drills are something we will start off with in practice every day. We focus on the basics.”
Novick and his staff are thrilled to finally get on the field to work with their players.
“It feels good to be out here,” he said. “Our kids have been working hard in the weight room. They definitely have been anxious to get out on the field.”
The camp will let his team know what to expect when practice begins in August, Novick said.
“This will give them an idea of how we run things,” he said. “They will know the expectations of our entire staff after camp this week.”
Novick said summer camp is a valuable opportunity for players to show their skills to the coaching staff.
“Every player will get an opportunity to get reps at their particular positions,” he said. “What they learn here will carry over into the season.”
Buccaneers football camp is geared toward improving each player’s individual abilities.
“We’re focusing on developing each player’s skills. They won’t be learning a lot of plays but instead improving their skills including footwork, speed, agility and technique,” Novick said “We want them hitting the field full speed ahead in August.”
Buccaneers assistant coach James Andrews concurred with Novick’s concept of summer camp.
“We want to get the basics down here so we can teach them our system when practice begins,” he said. “We want them to have a blast out here and want to start building that family atmosphere.”
Senior quarterback Bernie Anderson has been waiting for his final high school year on the grid year to come around for a long time.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” he said. “I want my senior class to have a great senior year. In our first year as a high school we want to make it count. It looks like we will have a pretty good team.”
Junior tight end and defensive end Ian Brown said camp is testing each player’s level of physical fitness.
“We’re getting conditioning out here. The more conditioned you are, the less chance you have of getting hurt during the season,” he said. “We’re getting ready for the season right now. That’s why we’re all at this camp, to get better.”
