2009 Lake Norman Youth Football Combine Recap
Posted by William | Filed under General, Football, Camps, Featured, Awards
Noah participated in the very first Lake Norman Youth Football Combine last year, and since most of his Pop-Warner coaches volunteer at the Combine, we signed him up again this year. The "camp" is two hours a day for 4 days. Typically the first hour revolves around improving "combine" skills (40 yard dash, vertical leap, shuttle run, and this year push-ups in a minute, and standing long jump), the second hour is divided into offense and defense position skill improvements.
(rest of this entry is after the quote...)There's no substitute for guts.
- Paul Bear Bryant
For some reason Noah has trouble with the 40 yard dash. He's fast, but introduce a stop watch and things get crazy. For whatever reason, he lets off the gas before crossing the finish line. So, we have basically written it off to "Noah has 'football' speed" and not stress on it. Despite that small bit of frustration, Noah performed well in the combine drills, despite doing most of it in the rain on the final day. Highlights of this year's combine were a 5.9 40 yard dash (in the rain), and did 90 push-ups in a minute.
Since Noah has worked as a linebacker at the other camps, I decided to put him with the corner backs at this camp. We are not 100% sure what position he'll play for the Giants this year, so it seemed like the right move. For his offensive position, he still wanted to work as a RB. He showed the same passion has he always does and the coaches where very happy with his improvement.
On the final day they present a number of awards to the 100+ kids. They give two awards for each position on offense and defense (younger and older). For the combine the boys are divided into 6 age groups, and an award is given for the top performer in each group for the 40 yard dash, the vertical leap, and the shuttle run. In addition each group has a "heart and hustle" award
Since it was raining on the last day, I took the camera to the Jeep at the beginning of evening. I did not anticipate Noah winning any awards, so I didn't bother running to get it before the award ceremony. Color me stupid, because the boy wound up taking home 2 awards. Noah was one of the MVPs for the Running Back group, and won the "Heart and Hustle" award for his age group.
