University of North Carolina Athletics
Football Camp: Q&A With Butch Davis
June 11, 2009 | Football
June 11, 2009
North Carolina's football camps get underway on Saturday, June 13 in Chapel Hill. Head Coach Butch Davis sat down with TarHeelBlue.com to talk about his football camp, all the things campers will get to experience during their stay and his goal for every camper.
Q: Why is football camp important to you and the program?
A: Football camps, like all camps, serve an awful lot of good. At football camp, players get a chance to improve their skills, a chance to compete against other kids from other high schools and sometimes other states, and they get exposure to some of the best coaches in the country. Our coaching staff really looks forward to an opportunity to work with these kids. From a college coaches' perspective, camps are important because they give us exposure to athletes, whether it's someone we are recruiting or someone we should be recruiting. It gives us a chance to see some of the better prospective football players. But the most important thing is that it's an opportunity for kids to have a lot of fun.
Carolina has a variety of camps this year. Explain each of those camps.
A:The football camp industry has changed over the last few years. Ten or 15 years ago, you had a week-long camp or maybe some half-week camps back-to-back, but now with so many kids wanting to visit a variety of schools, we've had to tailor-make our camps to fit different markets. We still have a junior camp for young kids who are just starting their football careers. It's a great camp for them. They get to learn a lot of fundamentals and spend time in Chapel Hill.
We also have specific camps geared toward specific types of players. We have a lineman camp that is designed just for offensive and defensive linemen, coached by Sam Pittman and John Blake who do a phenomenal job. We have a skill camp which includes the offensive skill positions - quarterbacks, tailbacks, wide receivers and tight ends - and defensive skill positions - cornerbacks, safeties and linebackers. That camp allows you to do a lot of seven on seven drills and really get a chance to work on some of the skills necessary to play at an elite level.
We now have 1-day camps that allow players to come for a couple of practices, eat a few meals with us if they choose and have the opportunity to spend the night. We also have 2-day prospect camps for rising seniors.
We have a kicking camp and we bring in specialty coaches, including former Carolina and NFL punter Tommy Barnhardt.
Over the next two weeks, we will have a variety of camps that fit a variety of campers needs and hopefully, we'll have a lot of kids visit Chapel Hill.
Q: How involved is the North Carolina coaching staff with the camp and do you bring in other coaches to help you?
A: Because of the number of campers we hope to have and the number we've had in the past, our full-time nine coaches, myself, our graduate assistant coaches and our volunteer coaches work exclusively in this camp. They teach and take the lead roles in our camps. Because we want each camper to receive as much individual attention as possible, we supplement the camp with approximately 8-10 high school coaches from the area. One additional feature of our camp, is that we allow other college coaches the area to work in our camp. That benefits the camper who wants some exposure to both North Carolina coaches and other college coaches in the state and surrounding states.
Q: Is camp all about football or are there other things you try to teach?
A: One of the things we try to do is give campers a little more than just football. You want your camp to be predominately driven by kids that love football, that want to practice football and learn as much as possible. But there are a lot of other things that we think are very important and we emphasize those during camp. We talk an awful lot about academics; how important it is to be a good student and to start early in your high school and middle school careers. We talk about the importance of getting a good GPA and following up with a good SAT or ACT score. We talk about our strength and conditioning program and the importance of nutrition. Most of these kids are 13-18 years old and are growing and maturing and we feel like its important to talk to them about nutrition and what they eat.
We give campers a tour of the facilities, we show them the campus and we talk about the recruiting process. At times, we watch some film of current NFL guys and guys that are on our team. This gives them a mental image of players they should try to emulate. They get to watch those guys do a lot of the things that they want to do. We also talk a great deal about the importance of having good character, about being good teammate, the importance of teamwork and dedicating yourself to you high school team. One of the important things I try to talk to kids about is adversity and how you handle yourself on and off the football field when faced with adversity. There are a lot of things we talk about other than football at our camp.
Q: Carolina has some of the best facilities in the country. How do you use them in camp?
A: We have access to four full length football fields, including the grass practice field, our field turf field, our Astroturf field and of course, Kenan Stadium. The players will use our football team's weight room. We'll have some instructional drills inside the Eddie Smith Indoor Facility. We are proud of what is going on here with our current renovation of the Kenan Football Center, which we hope to have done in the next month or so. It will include a new lockerroom, new meeting rooms and renovated recruiting space. I think all the kids will get a chance to see some great facilities.
Q: How important has camp been to Carolina's recruiting?
A: I think it's been extraordinarily important. We've signed 72 players since I've been here and 58 of those came to camp. Some came for a week, some for just a day, but that's where the relationship starts and I encourage kids to attend as many camps as possible.
Q: What is your goal for campers at UNC?
A: Ultimately, my goal for each kid when they come to camp, is that they leave here having had a great time, had a lot of fun and they learned a lot about football. I want them to build some relationships with kids that are in the camp and the coaches. I hope every camper feels like the North Carolina camp certainly helped them become a better football player.
