Free camps develop character as well as skills

Greg Roeszler started an organization that holds free camps where participants agree to do community service. Randall Benton / rbenton@sacbee.com

Doug Cosbie wanted to avoid an awkward situation for his players.

So when the Sacramento High School football coach and his assistants decided to do a three-day team camp last summer in Stockton, the coaches dug into their own pockets for the $3,000 to send 30 players, even at a discounted rate.

"We had some kids we knew probably could afford it and others we knew who couldn't," Cosbie said. "We just felt more comfortable paying for it ourselves."

The former Dallas Cowboys tight end is like a lot of coaches in the Sacramento region. To run a competitive program, he needs his players working hard in offseason activities, such as camps.

It paid off last year. The Oak Park charter school went 7-4, its first winning season in 15 years.

Such camps can be a huge plus for teams because it's the only time during the offseason – under California Interscholastic Federation rules – that players are allowed to put on helmets and pads and play full-contact tackle football as a team.

But like a lot of inner-city coaches, Cosbie has many players from families struggling to pay bills each month, let alone trying to find money for a sports camp that can cost up to $400 per player.

That's where Greg Roeszler comes in.

The former West Campus and current Encina football coach, seeing a need to provide free camps for teams that can't afford them, started an organization four years ago called the Playmakers Mentoring Foundation.

His Rancho Cordova-based group has held camps for high school and youth teams in the Sacramento area and Southern California and hopes to expand the concept beyond the state.

But while Playmakers camps are no cost, the players aren't getting a free ride. As part of the organization's mission, every camp participant agrees to do community service.

"It's the idea of paying it forward," said Roeszler, 52. "If you are a football player in Sacramento, you are a visible person. We want you to help make it a better place."

He said players have cleaned and repaired churches, school grounds and parks; served and cleaned up at a variety of civic group functions; worked youth football camps; and held benefit car washes, including for Hurricane Katrina victims.

Playmakers' largest camp took place locally last week at Kennedy High School. Roeszler, a former quarterback at San Diego State and a camp player with the Raiders, hosted more than 400 athletes from eight schools.

Among them was Sac High.

Cosbie had more than 70 varsity and junior varsity players at Kennedy, something that might have cost more than $7,000 if the Dragons had gone as originally planned to a camp in Stockton that wound up being canceled.

Burbank coach John Heffernan, whose Titans beat powerhouse Grant for last season's Metro Conference championship, is a huge fan of Playmakers. His Titans attended Playmakers camps from 2005 to 2007, although not this year's at Kennedy.

"Inner-city kids normally do not go to football camps," Heffernan said. "For all our kids to try to come up with $125 or more to attend a camp would be tough, if not impossible. So what Greg is doing is huge."

Nathan Preston, who coaches one of the smallest public school programs in the area at West Campus, said it's unlikely that his varsity team, which averages about 22 players and competes in the larger-school Capital Valley Conference, would be able to attend a camp without Playmakers.

"For a program like ours, this is so important," the second-year head coach said. "Not many of our kids play Pop Warner football. For the younger kids, this gives them a big jump … and for all our kids, the contact work shows that they can compete, that they can match up with players from other schools."

Preston and his fellow coaches also like the idea that Playmakers camps are about more than football. At the Kennedy camp, guest speakers, including Cosbie, talked about the importance of sportsmanship, character and maintaining good grades.

The payback concept is another big draw.

The commitment the players have to make to do some community service – that this isn't a handout – kind of excited us," Cosbie said.

West Campus senior Tristan Howard, a four-year Playmakers participant, said he considers doing community service more than fair because it "would be a stretch" for his family to come up with money for a paid camp.

As part of his service, Howard, who plays slotback and safety, helped coach at a youth football camp in Folsom his sophomore year and worked at a church last year.

"The giving back aspect is good, and it's a chance to meet players from other schools in a little different atmosphere," Howard said.

Sacramento High wide receiver-defensive back Mike Henderson already does 40 hours of community service a year as part of the school's graduation requirements, so he said adding a few more hours for free football instruction will be no sweat.

"I'll be ready when they call," Henderson said. "As long as it doesn't conflict with my school schedule, I'll be there."

Henderson said he has learned a lot from his three five-hour Playmaker sessions.

"It definitely was helpful," Henderson said. "And as a team, we've gotten a lot out of the camp, especially as far as helping with our chemistry."

The 50 participating coaches also learned something about working together through a character-based mentoring session headed by Roeszler the day before the camp's start.

"It's a chance for everyone to meet each other and for us to emphasize our philosophy, which can be as simple as reinforcing the idea of having players help other players up off the ground during our scrimmages," Roeszler said.

Heffernan said the Playmakers camps are special because the coaches are active participants in the teaching rather than observers, which usually is the case at paid camps. He said he found working with groups of players from other teams as well as his own to be rewarding for him and helps break down barriers between athletes from different schools.

"It gives the kids a chance to see each other in a different light, not as enemies but as football players that are part of a fraternity," Heffernan said.