Quality education for the playing field doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.
W
hen it comes to putting your child into a sports camp, I believe one of the best things you can hear is, “We try to keep it affordable for families.”
Don’t get me twisted here — if you have the disposable income to send your kid to a top-of-the-line camp, or something that advertises itself as such, I’m not one to tell you how to spend your money. It’s just that there are many parents out there that want to give their kids such opportunities but, because the money’s not right, they can’t. Or, so they think.
One of my favorite things about Plant City is that a lot of local coaches get that, thus they try to keep the prices low. Having covered many of this town’s recurring camps and gotten to know these coaches, I can tell you it’s generally possible to get a good learning experience here on the cheap.
I went to the Coach Kris Broussard football camp on June 10 and saw kids get plenty of sound advice from Broussard’s team and the co-hosting Plant City Dolphins personnel. Broussard has coached on several National Football League staffs in the last few years, not to mention that he brought former Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Ahmad Black to town to help. If anyone knows what it takes to reach the game’s highest level, it’s guys who got there.
That education cost families as little as $35 for that one day.
Sure, it wasn’t a full-pads contact camp. Everyone played in their “CKB” shirts, basketball shorts and cleats. You can absolutely get full-pads action in the Tampa Bay area, but Offense-Defense Football Camps are going to run you at least $299. In that camp’s case, you’re also looking at prices as high as $895 for overnight sessions. You could send your kid to IMG Academy’s camp for a week at a cost of $1,249.
Though the quality of those camps and others like them may be excellent, the costs are simply not feasible for many families that want what’s best for their kids. Enroll if you have that kind of money, but don’t fret if you don’t.
You could enroll your kid in a one-week session at the University of Tampa for $260, or stay local and try Plant City High School’s summer basketball camp at $115 per week. You’re unlikely to find a cheaper alternative for summer wrestling than the Charger Wrestling Club, which charges $30 per month and operates on the Planteen Recreation Center’s grounds. You can get in on Plant City High School’s cheer clinic for $70 if paying $200 for the Bucs’ youth clinic is a bit much.
A good place for parents to start looking for such local offerings would be the city’s Recreation and Parks Department, which nearly always has something going on in our parks. We’ve got several martial arts schools around town that offer summer camps, as well.
As a proponent of youth sports, I believe all sports camps should be affordable. I hope that, in time, some of those “elite” sports camps will start to resemble ours in price. It could be the one thing that changes someone’s entire summer for the better.
