CMU athletics offers sports camps for area youth
With the ever increasing athletic skills of today's youth,
CMU's sports camps helps define and improve a youth's raw talent.
In its 33rd year, the CMU athletics department has one of the top sports
camp programs in the Midwest region.
Jay Lanctot, associate director of athletics said the program was built
from a meager beginning.
"We started with one boy's camp and one girl's camp session," Lanctot
said.
The reasoning behind the start of the sports camps was that coaches wanted
to maximize the facilities, keep their coaching skills sharp and help
in the recruiting process.
Lanctot said there are now 13 sports camps and activities included in
40 sessions.
Lanctot also said that the sport camp programs are competitive from school
to school and Central has done the necessary things to keep the program
on top.
One of the major changes the camp program made was adding specialized
and niche camps to teach campers specific skills and training techniques.
Another change is in the team camps, where junior varsity and varsity
teams can come and learn team concepts, plus there are performance clinics
that teach concepts such as fitness and weightlifting techniques.
Although campers learn important skills and techniques when it comes to
their specific sport, Lanctot said they can expect a lot more in their
experiences at CMU.
"For a lot of the kids that come here, this is their first experience
away from home," Lanctot said.
"The interaction with coaches and other kids provides social skills and
a maturation process. It's a good opportunity that challenges the kids
to test their skills."
Lanctot said the camp program expects to have over 5,000 campers this
summer and the camp attendance is up approximately four percent over the
same time period from last year.
Running the sports camps is "a complete university effort," Lanctot said.
To run the camp program, the athletics department works with many different
university departments, such as the CMU Police, the Office of Residence
Life and Dining Services.
As competitive as sports camps are, Lanctot is proud of the fact that
the camp fees are comparable to other schools.
"When you consider the total package ... location, facilities, housing,
schedule, opportunities, events and the camp coaches, we feel we have
a top quality program," Lanctot said.
"We keep a low ratio (12:1) of campers to coaches and we have something
for every boy and girl from seventh to 12th grade."
The revenue created by the camps is distributed to the general athletics
fund minus the costs incurred to run the camps.
Each camp fee is different for each sport and there are different fees
for campers that stay or for those who commute.
An additional change that the camp program has added is the availability
of information and registration on the athletics Web site.
With the increase in the use of the Internet, people now have 24-hour
access to various camp information and parents can register their son,
or daughter in a camp online using the secure registration form and include
payment via credit card.
"The Web site makes the registration process more convenient to the families
who want to send their children to a camp," Diane Craven, CMU athletics/sports
camps clerk, said.
Craven said there has been no steady flow of online registrations, noting
that some weeks she receives a lot, but other weeks she only gets a few.
Craven also said the number of people using the online registration method
will be available after the camp sessions.
Here is a listing of the remaining sports camps.
For more information on CMU sports camps, call the athletics department
at 1-800-CMU-4FUN, or visit the Web site at www.cmuchippewas.com.
