CULLMAN – A plethora of kids, from elementary age to high school, flocked to Heritage Park Friday and Saturday to take part in this year’s Jeremiah Castille Character Camp.
“We call them character camps,” said former Alabama and NFL standout Jerimiah Castille of his free camp. “We teach character. We integrate that into the training side, the agility and speed, as well as the football-specific stuff. We talk about the importance of honor, humility, respect, integrity, just some character traits we feel are important as a person.”
For nine years, Cullman has played host to the Jeremiah Castile Character Camp, the longest running Castille Camp in the same city, and for the ninth year in a row, it was a huge success. On the surface, the camp teaches speed and agility, but it goes much, much deeper than that.
“For me, growing up in a neighborhood where there was drugs and alcohol, domestic violence, it was the character that was taught to me by my teachers and my coaches that helped me escape that environment,” said Castille in an interview with The Cullman Tribune. “It gave me the knowledge, equipped me with the knowledge to overcome the circumstances of the neighborhood that I grew up in. That is important to me that we equip our young people with that.”
The free football camp catered to the first 200 participants grades 6-12 for the football camp Friday and Saturday. The speed and agility camp was also held Friday and Saturday for the first 45 participants grades 1-5, 6-8 and 9-12.
“When you start looking at your coaches, you have to have coaches that have the ability to teach young athletes, five-year-old, six-year-old, seven-year-old, somewhere along in there, to coaches that can coach high school athletes,” Castille said of the wide age gap at the camp. “All of that is different so we have coaches with that expertise.”
Players from across the county, from pee wee to high school, converged on the camp to learn from pro athletes including Castille, Olympic sprinter Willie Smith and Tim Castille.
“You know you will have these parents that will spend all of this money to go to an Auburn camp or an Alabama camp, and there is nothing wrong with that, but this camp is free. You take a coach like Dennis Alexander who played at Alabama and played with the Tennessee Titans and who is now a high school coach. You couldn’t ask for a better situation,” said Castille of his great group of coaches at the camp. “Willie Smith, who is an Olympic gold medalist, Tim Castille who played at the University of Alabama and with the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl team and with the Arizona Cardinals. You can’t get any better.”
The camp was a great opportunity for players off all ages, both boys and girls, to learn some great skills they can put to use, both on and off the gridiron.
Learn about the Jeremiah Castille Foundation at http://castillefoundation.org/.
