Football camps an audition for players and college programs

[Guest CardinalClaw]

After more than two hours of drills at Provost Umphrey Stadium, Lamar football coach Ray Woodard weaved through a crowd of exhausted high school players and located Hamshire-Fannett defensive lineman Cameron Malveaux.

 

Woodard slipped Malveaux a business card and told the player to call him soon. It was the first time Malveaux had any contact with the Lamar coaching staff.

 

"Getting recognized by college coaches, it doesn't get better than that, to me at least," Malveaux said.

 

Malveaux was one of more than 120 high school players that participated in Lamar's junior/senior football camp on July 23, which has become an important recruiting tool for both the athlete and the coach.

 

Players use camps to get themselves in front of coaching staffs of schools they would be interested in playing for. And it's often the first time those coaches get the chance to evaluate - or even notice - potential recruits in person. Essentially, it's an audition.

 

"I go to a small school, Hamshire-Fannett, so I'm trying to get my name out there," Malveaux said.

 

"We've gotten players that we had already evaluated and that we were interested that have come to camp that we've signed," Woodard said. "But we've also had players walk up that we knew nothing about that ended up playing for us."

 

For the complete story, read Tuesday's print edition of The Beaumont Enterprise.

 

 

Read more: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/sports/article/Football-camps-an-audition-for-players-and-1685945.php#ixzz1TqLHe4y6