Chapter 16: Soccer Camp

On Monday morning, Connor offered to give Drew a ride to the soccer camp facility. It was only three miles away on a direct line, but the most direct route there was blocked by two major highways, making the trip somewhat longer, so getting a ride there was practically essential.

“We’ll need to use the bike today,” Connor told Drew. “Frantz says that he’s okay with us looking for a car for ourselves, maybe before the summer’s over.”

“Yeah. I don’t care for that riding in bad weather we had to do sometimes. You know how to get to the camp?”

Connor grinned, “I don’t, but my phone nav app does. Let’s go.”

The first day was for the staff alone; they needed to set up the camp; the soccer campers would be coming Tuesday. This was an extended day camp, so there would be no overnight campers. When Drew and Connor arrived at the parking lot, there was a large amount of activity going on with a number of people unloading several trucks and carrying tables, folding chairs, bags of balls, and other items needed for the camp, over to the turf field, so Drew and Connor pitched in and helped in the carrying.

After several minutes, Coach Adcock came out of a little office trailer set up at the end of the parking area, and two other adults followed her. Adcock saw Drew, waved, and called her over. They went into a tent pavilion set up next to the trailer.

“Welcome, Drew,” she said. “Let me introduce you. Coaches, this is Drew Harper, our high-school state first-team defensive player from Hershey, Pennsylvania. Drew, these are Head Coach Leonard Walker, the camp director and men’s soccer coach at Loyola, and Coach Janice Graham, girls’ coach at Arundel High School.”

“Welcome, Drew,” Walker said and shook her hand; then Graham did. “After we get everything set up, we’ll get the rest of the staff over here and get your final sign-ups done and talk about our camp program. You can leave your gear here and we’ll check on the crew setting up.”

They went over to the crew carrying the items and directed where they should be placed; then Connor came over to Drew.

“Hi, Coach Adcock, you others too. Drew, I’ll take off now, sweetie. Pick you up at 7?” he asked.

Walker looked at him with a puzzled expression. “But weren’t you were working with the setup crew? I don’t recognize you...”

Adcock interrupted, “Oh, Len, he’s with Drew. Came to my school in April, when I met her.” She looked at Connor appraisingly. “I don’t recall your name...”

“It’s Connor Martin, Coach.”

“You were helping the setup?” Adcock asked.

“Sure; two guys needed another hand, so I’ve been helping. Hope that wasn’t a problem?”

Adcock looked at Walker. “Len, could he be a possibility? Connor, can you wait a few minutes to talk—do you have to be somewhere?”

“No ma’am ... I don’t understand...”

“We’ve had two last-minute counselor cancellations, so we’re short-handed for camper supervision. You appear to be very athletic and...”

“Coach? I don’t play soccer.”

Walker spoke then. “What Coach Adcock was getting to is that you might be able to help us. Like how you pitched in to help the crew carry stuff. We find ourselves short on a camper counselor and a fitness coach, not soccer instructors. We need someone to supervise the 13 to 15 group. And our strength and conditioning coach had to pull out too. We’re wondering if we could recruit you for a job here, if you’re available this summer. Do you know the camp’s schedule?”

“Yes sir; I’m Drew’s transportation.”

“A thought. You look awfully fit, Connor. Play any sports?”

“Sure, Coach, but no organized sports yet. I’m a good swimmer so I plan to try out for the swim team here. I run and lift, too.”

Adcock and Graham looked at each other and Graham asked, “Do you follow a particular weight-training program, Connor?”

“Sure. Coach. I don’t lift to bulk up my muscles. I use routines that build speed and power. I’ve been doing explosive workouts for power for maybe four years, with and without resistance, and for the last two years, at Drew’s instigation—gotta keep up with her—I’ve been partnering with her when she does her sprints and agility drills like shuttle runs—and five-mile runs for endurance. And good discipline and proper pre- and post-workout stretching is a necessity. It’s essential to develop that habit.”

“Len, he sounds perfect, you think?” Graham asked.

“Can you teach others how to train like that safely?” Walker asked.

“Oh, certainly, Coach. It’s not hard to learn the exercises. It’s the self-motivation to do them with proper form and the dedication to keep at it to maintain conditioning that’s hard to develop.”

Walker smiled. “That’s the perfect answer, young man. We do need a strength and conditioning coach, as I mentioned, and if you think that you’re up to it, want to give it a go? I’ve got our camp’s complete fitness schedule in the trailer showing the exercises and drills we use; you can modify the routines to fit your own style as long as you keep the overall format. We’re building campers’ agility and stamina, primarily, and strength is a second goal. I think that your physical appearance is the only skills reference I need.”

Connor blushed.

He named the pay that he could offer for the camp session and then quietly told Connor that he’d have to pass a sexual-offender background check.

“But you don’t have any skeletons to hide, am I right?” he asked and Connor told him that he was clean.

And with that fortuitous encounter, now both Connor and Drew had summer jobs—with the same hours at the same place. The rest of the day was taken up with completing employment paperwork, going over the camp schedule, and getting assignments. Drew learned that her skills and abilities were highly valued by the camp’s leaders when Walker told her that she would be introduced to campers as Coach Drew. Adcock had learned from Coach Aberman that Drew had essentially become her varsity team’s defensive unit coach and strategist.

The most intensive part of the rest of the day was the staff run-through of the camper activities and Drew got to demonstrate her ball-handling prowess. Adcock set up a five-on three scrimmage session with the soccer instructors—these were five college players—and they were to defend against Drew, Adcock, and Graham—to show how good ball-handling abilities could overcome being out-manned. Or in this case, “out-personned.” Their three-person team scored on the defenders on five out of six attempts and Drew was elated with the attention which the others heaped on her, praising her skills.

Connor got to showcase his knowledge too. Walker had given him the previous year’s conditioning schedule earlier and Connor had looked it over. Walker asked him to demonstrate how he thought he should teach those exercises in his sessions.

Connor glanced over the sheets again and then looked up at Walker, then at the group. “You know, you gotta tailor the drills and exercises for the kids’ ages,” he told the group. “This looks like the same stuff was taught to everyone. Proper exercise routines aren’t a cookie-cutter deal. You can’t teach the same things to a ten-year-old that you would to someone who’s sixteen. So for the youngest groups, I’ll concentrate on developing their wind and stamina by sprints and shuttle-runs; perhaps a half-mile run—we’ll see about doing that after I get to evaluate how physically prepared the kids are. I was happy to see that you’ve got lots of hula hoops and sports rings and there are plenty of agility exercises that use those. Let me show you a few.”

He ran through a half dozen and had the group try them.

“Great. Those exercises are perfect for most ages but best for the young ones—and they can do them at home too. But those exercises, also running ladders or cones, are really change-of-direction drills and they don’t truly train for the kind of agility one needs in playing hockey, football, and yes, soccer. I’ll show you something I saw to train kids for improving true reactive agility.”

Connor placed two soccer balls twelve feet apart to either side of him.

“When you’re doing the usual agility training moves, you always know which way your next step needs to be, right? Running hoops, it’s either left or right and you go through them in sequence. What I’ll show you makes you do quick movements in random directions and trains for the kind of agility that you need in facing an opponent on the field. We’ll use four directions to move for this drill: down, up, left, and right. Here’s what you do for each direction.

“Down.”

Connor dropped into the plank position and did a full push-up and jumped back up to stand.

“Up.”

He went into a full squat; then explosively leaped up with his arms held high over his head.

“Left.”

He took a quick lunge to the left, moving behind the left ball, and squatted down to place his hand on the ball, then leaped back to return to the center.

“‘Right’ is the same move to the opposite side. And you need to keep your feet in motion the entire time—no standing in place waiting for the next move. I’ll demonstrate now; someone please call out a random direction about six times with a three second pause before the next rep.”

He demonstrated how that drill worked and then had the group try it.

“I’ll have the campers do this in groups of five with a sixth direction caller; then the callers will do the exercise themselves. Each drill is for three minutes and we’ll do it twice a day. It’s best in my experience to do the agility drills no more than three days a week. That gives the body and mind some ‘reset’ time, so you’re always sharp for it. The other drills I think work well for soccer players are shuttle runs; ladder running several ways: going forward, doing a sideways shuffle, and doing it single- or two-footed hops over the rungs; and Drew showed me a cool dribbling drill, doing a slalom course with a ball. At our old school I saw a great exercise called the box drill. Put cones at the corners of a three-meter square. The player sprints forward to the first cone, shuffle-runs sideways to the second facing outward, runs backwards to the third, and shuffles to the starting cone, this time facing inward. Time the campers and look for improved times.

“For strength, I’d teach the younger ones the same three weight-lifting exercises as the older groups, with a major modification. Reps don’t work for the youngsters; they’re boring. There are plenty of physical games that we could do that activate the same muscle groups that squats, deadlifts, and bench presses do, and I saw equipment inside the sports facility that can be used for the kids that will work just fine. I’ll use the regimen you used for last year’s camp, Coach Walker, and I’ll use that to set up my schedule. Will that work for you?”

“Connor, that was well beyond my expectations; thanks. Listening to you talking about physical training, it sounded to me that a guy with a degree in sports physiology was speaking. How did you get so well informed, may I ask?”

“It’s complicated, sir. The short version is to avoid bullying where I grew up—lived in a rough neighborhood—I decided that I needed to get strong, so I learned as much as I could and had to improvise a lot. So many of the things I’ve come up with are based on my personal experience. And I suppose my physique serves as the proof of their effectiveness, if I could say so,” he finished with a grin and a shrug.

The other coaches and instructors laughed and gave him a bit of applause, so he bowed to them, which resulted in more chuckles.

“Maybe Connor needs a class in modesty,” Drew jibed, which evoked more laughter.

Toward the end of the day, Walker and Adcock met with Drew and Connor. Walker told the two about camper procedures and management.

“Since you’re newcomers to the camp—everyone else has been here at least one prior season—we wanted to go over a few details with you. They’re mostly common sense. We have an accident and injury policy and procedure and you need to get familiar with that. You’ll need to watch your charges to be sure you know where everyone is at all times and for safety, be sure that no one goes off on their own. Since the camp’s co-ed, watch for any sexual conduct; that’s forbidden, of course. No smoking, no drugs, obviously. Be sure everyone stays hydrated—we keep water stations at locations all around the area. Watch for inappropriate behavior of any kind, especially bullying or fighting. Many kids are intensely competitive and will try to overwork themselves. Watch for that, and for signs of physical and heat exhaustion—and especially for the danger of overheating injuries. You got packets of staff guidelines and the staff manual; please read those. Any questions?”

There were none, but Adcock had a request for Connor.

“If you’re willing, I’d be really happy to have you think about joining our soccer team for the season as a student conditioning coach, Connor. See how your job here works out here before deciding. This is a fairly intensive job, so you might have some reservations about doing it.”

“I might, Coach. But I plan to try out for the swim team. There might be some season overlap so I’ll need to look into that.”

For the next several days, both Connor and Drew were kept busy with camp activities. Connor led groups of campers in a combination of the camp’s training regimen combined with his own additions. Drew learned that her skills were among the best of anyone at the camp, and the kids were constantly pressuring her to teach them the fancy ball-handling plays she used. She insisted that only those with more advanced skills would benefit from knowing how to do those trickier moves. At one session, where she was coaching a rondo drill, several of her group asked her to teach the roulette move.

“Okay, guys, here’s the scoop. All those ball-handling moves I’ve used when we’ve scrimmaged—scissors, Maradona, Elastico, Zidane, rainbow flick, all the others—need top-notch dribbling skills. Think about this. All those moves are done only when you’re being very closely marked, like you can feel-the-defender’s-breath-on-your-neck close. So if you try to play tricks with the ball and do a fake, it’s you who’ll get faked, maybe even get to eat grass, while you watch that ball heading back toward your own goal.

“So sure, I’ll teach those skills, but only if you can show me, when we have our scrimmages, that you can keep control of the ball when you’re being marked. Next time we do an open-field dribbling clinic, if any of you can keep the ball for fifteen seconds when I’m marking you, then I’ll teach one fancy move to you. Deal?”

A few of the kids nodded, grinning. They liked Drew’s challenge.

“You can take the camp’s personal development time to use your phone to look at some YouTube dribbling videos too. If you show me that you can handle the ball and footwork methods solo for a particular dribbling move, and your technique and control look good, I’ll work with you to see how you handle being faced with an opponent. The idea isn’t to look fancy, it’s all about keeping possession of the ball and moving it toward the goal. Also good?”

The kids answered that it was.

“Right. So let’s get back to our passing clinic again; this time we’ll do the 8x3 positional rondo. The three defenders get the orange vests; okay, Georgette, Tony, and Lucille, you’re defending to start. You all know the drill; two touches on passes so you have better control. Defense, always watch the ball! Not the face, not the hips, just the ball. Then you’ll see the passer’s free leg position just before the ball is touched—that should give you an idea of the intended kind of move. And when you’re marking a dribbler, you’ll also catch a fake or moves like a stop and go, a push-pull, La Croqueta, a stepover, or whatever. Now for this rondo, if the defense can’t intercept within five minutes, they each need to give me ten pushups. Now hit it.”

And that’s how Drew spend her days coaching at camp. Ten hours a day and four days each week. Of course, there were meal breaks, but the conversation topics were ... soccer. She loved it. Connor, too, was enjoying his coaching job and the kids he was teaching. When the older kids saw the strength and agility games Connor was doing with the younger ones, they wanted that too, so Connor came up with variants which used weights like kettlebells and medicine balls in group games to complement their traditional free-weight reps. He was also gaining upper-body and leg strength, he realized after a week when his muscles let him know.

He woke up Thursday morning with the typical charley-horse pains of muscle overuse.

“Uuunh, damn. I’m kinda stiff,” he complained.

“Poor baby ... used muscles you didn’t know you had?” Drew didn’t sound very sympathetic.

“Ahhh ... no, just overuse. Yeah, I got seven one-hour conditioning classes each day and I do all the exercises with the kids. That’s fuckin’ serious overuse. I gotta temper my participating a bit to stretch it out more. Speaking of, let me do some of that to get the kinks out. Then a hot shower and some ibuprofen and I should be good.”

Since it was the week’s end, the coaches brought the kids in to give them their progress reports and point out the areas that each camper needed to concentrate on. Drew provided a list of recommended YouTube videos they could watch and Connor had a written list of exercises that could be done at home.

“But remember ... the body needs one day or more to rest every week. Remember what I told you about how muscles are built. The fibers are broken down with heavy use and need recovery time to rebuild and, putting it simply, when they do, that’s where the improved strength comes from. So remember to take rest days between training each muscle group. And two days off between agility training sessions.”

Before everyone left at the end of the day, Walker told the two teens how pleased he was with their week’s work.

“Not only were your sessions effective at teaching the campers, the campers all love you both and say that this has been the best sports camp they’ve ever attended. I’d love to recruit both of you to enroll at Loyola, but you two have far better prospects at larger D1 schools. We’ll see you Monday. Enjoy the weekend.”

“Thanks, Coach,” they chimed.

Thursday night. Now Drew faced the moment of truth.

What is the truth, really? she wondered. True to myself, true to my friends, true to my beliefs—such as they are—true to my goals, true to my commitments? Which of those is the true truth? True to my freedom—maybe that’s the truth. Freedom to be me without people telling me how I should think, what I should believe, how I should conform to artificial morals constructed by psychological so-called experts about how I should become socialized. How I should become socialized by becoming sexualized. That’s no freedom. I want my freedom to be free. That’s the true truth.

“Connor?”

“Um, huh?”

“What you thinking of?”

“Jeez. What we’re doing tomorrow.”

“Me too. I decided.”