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Football is coming back to Kaiserslautern.
Based on overwhelming acceptance of the tackle football program here last year, U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern’s Child, Youth and School Services has begun registration for a youth tackle football camp, scheduled for June 23 to 26 and open to registered children age 9 to 18.
“We’re happy about it. It’s an exciting thing for us,” said Kurt Nusshag, assistant director for CYSS Youth Sports. “I think it’s going to be great for the community, especially following up our first year of tackle football.”
And what a year. Last year, planners got the go-ahead to run a tackle program open to the first 50 applicants.
“Once we opened up registration for those 50 slots, within two hours they were gone. And we had 60 kids on the waiting list,” said Tony Broccoli, CYSS YS director, who quickly sought permission to increase the cap on applicants. “Finally, we wound up with about 120 kids registered with a waiting list.”
The camp, which comprises three training sessions and three meals per day, will feature coaches and players from both the National Football League and collegiate ranks, Mr. Nusshag said.
“It’s great that we’re going to try to get our local volunteers out as well, so hopefully they can learn from (the guest coaches and players), learn their coaching techniques,” he said. “Our volunteers, without them we wouldn’t have a program. From what I’ve gathered … they’re really excited about coming out and learning certain things for these guys.”
Players are likely to be broken up into age groups, perhaps a group of younger children and a group of high school players, Mr. Nusshag said.
“It’s going back down to the fundamentals of teaching kids the proper techniques of defensive positions, offensive positions, the quarterback positions,” Mr. Broccoli said. “This camp can kind of fine tune that particular position for their son or daughter.”
Yes. Daughter.
“Girls are welcome, too. We did have a couple playing for us last year,” he said.
Players wishing to attend the camp, which is open to Department of Defense-sponsored youth from throughout Europe, must be registered with USAG-K CYSS programs before applying for the camp. For registration and contact information, log on to https://webtrac.mwr.army.mil/webtrac/kaiserslauterncyms.html.
