It was the summer of ’98 and two future NFL first round picks, T.J. Duckett and Phillip Buchanon, were about to enter their senior years of high school. They had also decided to attend a Nike Football Training Camp, in its first year of existence, for very different reasons.
Duckett was considered the nation’s top prospect, although at linebacker not running back, where he would make his mark at Michigan State before being the No. 18 overall selection in the draft by the Falcons in April.
As a junior at Loy Norrix High in Kalamazoo, Mich., Duckett had recorded 145 tackles and could bench press 500 pounds so it wasn’t a surprise that every major college in America had offered him a scholarship before his senior year—from Florida State to UCLA with all the Big 10 schools in between.
What did raise eyebrows was his decision to jump in the car with his mother, Jacquelyn Barham (who sadly died two years ago from cancer) and drive the 12 hours from Michigan to the Nike Camp in New Jersey and then, 30 minutes before the camp was finished, get back on the road for the all-night drive home so he could make the first session of the Knights’ two-a-day practices.
So why did Duckett find it so important to attend what, essentially at the time, was a new, unproven event?
“I wanted to go to learn some new techniques on how to get faster,” he said. “It was like my summer trip. I also wanted to see how I compared with the best in the country.” (Side note: he measured in at 6-0 1/2, 252 pounds, ran a 4.47 in the 40, recorded a 36 inch vertical, and did 32 reps of 185 pounds, second only to another future first round pick, William Green who went No. 16 to the Browns. Green, incidentally, ran a 4.33 in the 40, jumped 39 inches in the vertical and did 34 reps on the bench).
Buchanon, on the other hand, wasn’t ranked among the best nationally back then; in fact, he was barely known in his own state.
“We had no idea who Phillip was,” a Miami Hurricane coach would later say of the speedy corner taken No. 17 in the draft by the Raiders. “He lived about five hours away and we wouldn’t have known about him if it wasn’t for the Nike Camp in Miami that year.”
Like Duckett, Buchanon was known for playing a position in high school different from the one that would eventually make him millions. At Lehigh High in Lehigh Acres, Fla., Buchanon was a receiver who got lost in a Sunshine State class that included future college stars such as Andre Johnson (Miami) and Antonio Bryant (Pittsburgh).
What put him on the recruiting map, at least in the Hurricane coaches’ eyes, was a blistering 4.37 time in the 40 and glimpses of his aggressive one-on-one play in the camp’s passing drills.
“Phillip should give a cut of his NFL contract to the Nike Camp people,” laughs Lehigh coach Tom Rozell today. “It’s what put him on the map.”
On the Map
Largely because of stories like Duckett’s and Buchanon’s, the Nike Football Training Camps have been put “on the map” as the premier high school event of its kind. But what is a Nike Camp? And why have them in the first place?
“Our original goal,” says Nike’s Mark Cavanaugh, Director of Footwear for Football and Baseball,” was to give back to football, to the game that’s given Nike so much. We see the Nike Football Training Camps as becoming our premier grass-roots program for football.”
The Nike Football Training Camps are free half-day events designed to help high school football players improve their speed and explosiveness about the events, which are almost misnamed as they’re more clinic than camp.
“Nike provides sports performance specialists who teach the high school kids the tips they use in training NFL players and teams,” explains Chris Keldorf, who spearheaded the camps the last three years. “The camps are designed so the participants can take the speed and position drills home they’ve been taught and use them in their own training.”
And it’s not just players who benefit. “Some elite high schools have access to these state-of-the-art training techniques,” says Student Sports president Andy Bark, who worked with Nike to develop the training camp model, “but most programs don’t. We’ve made sure that every school now has a chance to learn them.”
The camps take, on average, only about four hours and are broken down into four sections:
1) testing elements (height, weight, 40, vertical, shuttle, and bench press) which are optional. Also, undesired measurements and scores can be scratched;
2) speed, agility and quickness training (nicknamed “SAQ”) where performance trainers demonstrate a variety of drills using rope ladders and cones;
3) position groups where participants learn techniques as their primary spot;
4) one-on-one linemen and passing drills, where athletes apply what they’ve learned.
While the “meat and potatoes” aspect of better training techniques is the focus of the camp, to the players the “cake and pie” tasty elements of college recruiting and media attention, as well as lining up next to Johnny Bluechipper to compare strengths and weaknesses, is what initially draws many to the events.
“My experience at the Nike Camp was cool,” recalls William Blackmon, a running back from Warwick, Rhode Island, “because I got to see how I tested out against other great athletes in the region.” The 6-foot, 193 pound Blackmon “passed” the test, running a 4.53 in the 40 and jumping 37 inches in the vertical, enroute to signing with Boston College.
For others, it’s a chance to showcase their abilities to a greater market.
“The Nike Camp launched me,” said BYU’s Ben Olson, the Thousand Oaks, Calif. quarterback considered by many as the No. 1 thrower in the Class of 2002. Olson was receiving mostly West Coast interest before a stellar performance at the 2000 camp at Stanford brought him scholarship offers from all over the nation.
Growing Success Amid Concerns
When the Eugune, Ore. camp wrapped up June last summer, it drew the curtain on five years and 51 camps which have been held on 22 D-I campuses with Nike ties as well as at pro facilities like Texas Stadium and the Falcons Training Complex.
This year’s tour kicks off Sunday, April 6 in Los Angeles and will end Friday June 20 in Seattle. In between, the camps will take place in Florida (two), Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, California again, Virginia, Alabama and Oregon.
Impressively, on average, each camp draws participants from 10 to 14 different states. In 2001, for example, players came from every state except North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming
In 2002, players also came from Canada, Mexico and Japan (an American high school student oversees).
The talent-level of the camps has also been impressive. Over the last three years, approximately one-third of all high school recruits who signed with a Div. I university passed through one of the Nike Camps nationwide and many top programs including Miami, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Washington have had at least half of their recruiting classes claiming Nike Camp ties.
The best testimonial for the effectiveness of the camps may be that standout underclass players, who make up less than five percent of the total attendees, have returned for two and even three years.
Matt Ware, the promising cornerback for UCLA last fall, attended two camps. Virginia All-American linebacker Kai Parnam, who signed with the homestate Cavaliers in February '02, attended three years worth of Nike Camps, two in Georgia and one in Pennsylvania. Why did he keep coming back? “I wanted to get better and faster,” he says simply.
However, not everyone has been so quick to embrace the camps.
Several state high school associations have felt aspects of the events conflicted with their rules, although for the most part their concerns have been alleviated. In Illinois, only two players per school are allowed to attend the same camp to prevent the possibility of coaches using such venues as an unauthorized, out-of-season team workout.
The Missouri association at one point last spring considering stripping camp attendees of their football eligibility believing the camps were “invitation only,” a violation of their rules. That was resolved when appropriate language posted on internet sites explained players needed to pre-register to confirm a spot and that anyone can attend if following the proper procedures.
In Arkansas, all out of season camps are prohibited and the governing body mulled over the situation before the threat of legal action by the family of a player wanting to attend led to the association postponing a final decision.
Some colleges also have their concerns, including coaches at schools that are not Nike-affiliated.
“I’m not comfortable with recruits going to campuses of schools we play and recruit against,” explained Dan Brooks, the recruiting coordinator and defensive line coach at the Univ. of Tennessee, which has a shoe deal sponsored by adidas.
“It doesn’t seem like a level playing field when they get to visit campuses where the camps are held.”
Because of the fear that host colleges would have an unfair recruiting advantage by hosting a Nike Camp, the NCAA even passed a “Nike Camp Rule,” preventing colleges from doing any official presentations or tours when players were on their campuses.
“The reason the camps are on Nike school campuses,” explains Cavanaugh, “is purely financial. We have a limited budget to pull off these camps and in an effort to make them free to the thousands of kids that attend, we work with our universities to get their facilities for a minimal cost. Not having to pay site fees permits us to put money towards quality training and coaching staffs and free workout shirts for the players. Plus it’s tough to find sites with two or three good, green, well-manicured football fields, a good weight room and the space to conduct a safe event.”
More Than a Combine
Last year, the 11 Nike Camps were attended by nearly 3,000 eager-to-learn teenagers, shattering the attendance mark set last year by more than 800 players. For 2003, nearly 1,000 players have already confirmed from 40 states as well as from Canada.
It would appear the camps are successful, but according to one organizer there’s still a lot of work to do.
“You’d think that after all this time,” sighs Greg Biggins, Director of Player Personnel for the camps, “that players, coaches and parents would know the benefits of the (Nike) camps, but we’re still trying to get people to stop using the word ‘combine.’
Combines (where players are tested in drills) are fine for what they are and we do provide the forties, verticals, etc, but at the Nike Camps players don’t even have to test. It’s frustrating when you have recruiting guys like Tom Lemming (ESPN.com) reportedly telling players to not go because a bad time can hurt their stock. We tell kids if they’re worried about that, then don’t test; just come for the training information.”
Biggins thumbs through testimonials of players and their parents who rave about the drills they learned.
“One player from Florida even drove home 10 hours from a Nike Camp, spray painted lines on his back lawn and began working on them that night. They love tapping into the expertise of speed trainers like Tom Shaw,” says Biggins of the speed coach for the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots last season and personal trainer for NFL stars such as Peyton Manning, Deion Sanders, Warrick Dunn, Donovan McNabb, Tom Brady, Derrick Brooks, and Jevon Kearse.
On a cold, rainy April day in University Park, Pa., last spring, 285 players at the Nike Camp on the Penn State campus were warm and dry inside the Holuba Hall indoor facility which houses two turf football fields. The white, muscle-shirt clad players were broken into several groups including one where dozens of players sat on the turf listening intently to Shaw, who walks among the players while talking.
“The only way to increase speed,” Shaw explained, “is by improving stride length and stride frequency together. Use your upper body. The faster you move your arms, the faster your feet will go.”
And he emphasized cross-training: “Those who will run the fastest 40 will be the most explosive and will have the best vertical and long jump.”
For the participants it was sobering to think that what Shaw teaches football players at a Nike Camp is what he drilled into the Patriots a year ago on their path to the 2002 Super Bowl.
And, for some, it seems to be working.
“Just two days after the (Pennsylvania) Nike Camp,” wrote C. Faulkner Jr, “my stepson, Matt Dicken, (a junior running back at Lower Cape May Regional in Erma, N.J.) broke a 22-year old school record by running the 100m in 10.74 and this on an old cinder track in terrible condition!
Matt said that the speed training learned at the camp definitely helped him in accomplishing this and, had he the knowledge before (the Nike camp), he feels he would have done better in the 40 at the camp, which he did in a respectable 4.47.”
“It's great that the kids get some recognition out of the camp,” he concluded, “but it's even better that they can learn something from it to make them better athletes.”