June 29, 2007
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Vanderbilt, Community Come Together
at Summer Camp
Feature Column By Will Matthews
NASHVILLE – Clipboard in hand and prowling the sidelines of a makeshift basketball court inside Memorial Gym last week, Christina Wirth was playing a role much different from the one the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team will need her to take on come this winter.
Rather than being the on-court focal point, the rising junior who was the Commodores’ third-leading scorer last season and who will be a key to the team’s hopes this year in the face of the graduation of three key, senior leaders, Wirth instead was one of a half-dozen current and former Vanderbilt players serving as coaches at the program’s Offensive Improvement Camp for area youth.
“It is awesome to be around kids who are excited to be here,” Wirth said of the more than 150 girls who turned out for the week-long day camp. “A lot of them are Vanderbilt fans, have been for a while and they come to our games. So they are excited to meet us and have us as coaches.”
While the rest of the Vanderbilt campus slumbers through the early days of summer, the university’s athletics fields are alive with the buzz of activity. Both the women’s basketball and baseball teams played host to youth camps last week, the women’s soccer program hosted camps during the first two weeks of June, the women’s basketball program hosted camps for advanced, high-school aged players the past two weekends and the baseball, women’s soccer, men’s basketball and men’s and women’s tennis teams are hosting yet more camp again this week.
The football team hosted camp earlier this month and the women’s lacrosse program will host camps next month.
It is a summer ritual that both coaches and players alike see as a way of giving back to the community while at the same time providing the possibility of getting a leg up on recruiting future generations of Vanderbilt athletes.
“Some of the most important parts of our jobs is contributing to the community and getting to know the players in the community and allowing our players at Vanderbilt the opportunity to become role models for the young girls,” said Head Women’s Soccer Coach Ronnie Coveleskie, who is overseeing two different residential camps this week for more advanced, high school-aged girls. “Putting our Vanderbilt players in front of youth in a camp environment allows them to get to know each other and then that Vanderbilt soccer player becomes a real person to them and becomes someone that they can identify with.”
Registration for all of Vanderbilt’s athletic camps this month were at record levels, a result that some attribute – in part, at least – to the success the university’s teams enjoyed during the past year and the burgeoning popularity of the teams in the greater Nashville area.
“It really has a lot to do with the success of the team,” said Justin VanOrman, director of basketball operations for the women’s basketball team that won 28 games last season and captured the Southeastern Conference Tournament championship in March. “I think the success we have had here recently has resulted in more and more people – kids especially – wanting to be around this program.”
Head Women’s Basketball Coach Melanie Balcomb said one of her primary goals upon taking the reigns of the program five years ago was to infuse the program’s existing fan base with some younger fans. A gym packed last week with young girls – many of whom were decked out in Vanderbilt attire – is evidence of her success in that regard.
But in concert with Coveleskie and Head Baseball Coach Tim Corbin, Balcomb said her program’s summer camps are more than a chance to celebrate her program. They also hold the potential of providing a chance to peer into the future.
“You never know when one of these young players is going to be a player like a Jess Mooney,” Balcomb said, referencing the Hillsboro High School product who was one of two true freshmen to log significant playing time for Vanderbilt last year and who will be counted on to be a key contributor for this season’s team.
For the campers, the Vanderbilt camps provide – perhaps more than anything else – an opportunity to get some unique, up-close-and-personal interaction with athletes that otherwise would be just figures on a playing field but who now take on more of a human face.
Last week at Hawkins field, for example, the 200 participating kids got tutelage from Vanderbilt left-hander David Price, the No. 1 overall pick in the Major League Baseball draft earlier this month and a player who many scouts suggest could be playing in the major leagues as soon as next season.
An additional 200 kids are participating in this week’s camp and the 400 total participants over the past two weeks is more than double that of last year.
“Working with little kids is supreme,” Corbin said. “I’ll never have my own little boys so just to be able to do something with them is great. But I also see it as community involvement. I just see camp as a way of thrusting our program into the community and pushing it even more. We had 400 kids this summer who are potential Vanderbilt baseball players or potential Vanderbilt fans who will say, `I’ve always remembered that experience, it was a great experience and I will always be a fan of Vanderbilt.'”
Will Matthews spent three years as an investigative reporter with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group in Southern California. He earned his Master of Divinity degree in 2007 from Vanderbilt Divinity School. To email Will your feedback, Click Here