Derek completed a rugged four days of football camp last week. When I say rugged, I’m not kidding. The boy came home every day with the worst bloodshot eyes I’ve ever seen. But accompanying the bloodshot eyes was a smile that went from ear to ear. He absolutely loved it. And just like his daddy, he remembered each play down to the most minute detail…and we heard about every one of them.

The camp was for kids ages 6 to 14. This is quite an age span, particularly when you fall in the younger half of the group. Every day began with warmups…check out the size of the kid behind Derek!

In order to make it easier to find Derek on the field, he wore a black jersey with black pants…nothing crazy, but uncommon enough to stand out (yes, I know, there is no “I” in “team”, but a mother needs to be able to track her boy at all times).

Look at him use those legs…

Time for a water break. The coaches were diligent in stopping practice throughout the day so the kids would keep well-hydrated.

The final day was devoted to scrimmaging. Now, every day Derek came home, he would announce that it had been his favorite day of camp; each day just kept getting better. But Thursday’s scrimmage took the cake; he was practically on cloud nine after a full day of real football plays.

Showing off his stance here.

There he is in the background blocking his guy. (Meanwhile, the kid in the foreground is trying frantically to recover the ball.)

Getting play directions from the coach.

Soon after Derek received the ball…

he was brought down hard by his opponent. He said his leg hurt for the rest of the day.

I’ll leave off with a video of Derek making a block on the offensive line (which, as a matter of trivia, was Jim’s position in college).