OUTLOOK - A former CFL offensive lineman will be bringing a daylong football skills camp to Outlook next month for those who may be interested in pursuing the sport.
Matt Sheridan, who played eight seasons with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and was twice named the team's Most Outstanding offensive lineman, is one of the coaches for the Saskatchewan Selects team, and on Saturday, June 14, the organization is bringing a Rural Skills Camp to Outlook at RB Lyons Field.
Sheridan describes the program as something that will benefit both players and coaches, as well as being tailored to each community in which the camp is held.
"It's a player and coaches skill development camp, so a little bit of a twist on the usual format for football camps," said Matt, on the phone with this reporter. "We're trying to basically blend a skills football camp and a coaching clinic into one as best we can, and it's all going to be tailored and customized to the needs, desires and requests of the coaches and the programs in your community."
Sheridan says the desire to tour the province and hold these camps come from what he sees as an untapped resource for football players and staff. The Selects program has a laundry list of coaches with extensive experience and backgrounds who are available to provide feedback, advice and pointers to those who are looking for advancement in the sport.
"So, this was born out of my observation that we don't do really as great a job promoting the coaches that we have with our Parent Selects program," he said. "We have hundreds and hundreds of years of experience. We have about a half dozen ex-CFL guys, a current CFL coach, a number of current and former junior and university coaches, literally hundreds of years of experience. And the value of the Selects program lies in the three-and-a-half months that the athletes get to practice and get trained by these coaches. And I melded that with the obvious challenges of participation in our winter program, primarily being geographic. We run out of the Yara Center in Moose Jaw from November until February, and that's not a great time of year to be traveling, especially in the Canadian prairies. It takes a big commitment time-wise to come down to Moose Jaw and stay a couple of days and then travel back. I wanted to explore all of the potential that exists in some of the smaller rural towns in Saskatchewan. So, I reached out to 17 different communities, and we got some really good feedback, made a decision on nine locations that we wanted to go to to put these camps on, and we started the process."
In addition to the Outlook camp being held on June 14, the Selects program is touring around Saskatchewan and even into Alberta, with current camps set to be held in Moosomin, Medicine Hat, Melville, and Swift Current.
Sheridan says the daylong program will provide learning opportunities for both coaches and players, including coaching presentations before taking to the field for drills on tackling, blocking, and more fundamentals of the game.
"What we're going to be doing is starting the process at 9:00 am, and that's for coaches," said Matt. "We're going to do about an hour of coaching presentation on a couple of different topics. Again, this has been stuff that's been requested by the coaches that I've been in touch with, and for Outlook, I've been dealing primarily with Coach Lloyd Tulp. He's acted as an intermediary. He and I have had a number of discussions about what we feel would be a good thing to do for the coaches there, and he seems to have his finger on the pulse of things. After that hour, we're going to spend two hours on the field from 10 until 12, trying to implement those ideas, setting up some drills so that the coaches can see the implementation of it, and engage in it. The kids are going to work on some of the fundamentals, primarily tackling and blocking. Those are two, I would say, the two most complex and risky fundamental skills related to football. So we want to make sure that they learn how to do it safely and properly. Come 12:00, we're going to break for an hour. Kids can have a little snack. The coaches will have an opportunity to ask some questions, get some clarification. Then we're back on the field again for two more hours, from 1 until 3, to either cover more material or work on a progression of the stuff that we worked on in the morning. And then we're going to have a nice little barbecue at 3:00 when it's over to wrap up and shake hands, have a chat, and go from there."
Matt says the camp is open to any and all football players regardless of age or skill level, as well as coaches. It's about welcoming anyone who has any interest in the game and passing on the knowledge that will hopefully help them excel in the sport in the future.
"Anyone who's interested in football and playing it and coaching it, whatever it may be, we want to see you there," he said. "We want to talk to you. We want to see if there is any way that we can be of assistance in furthering your football journey, regardless of whether it's on the sidelines or on the football field. We also want to try to contribute and bring some value to the communities in rural Saskatchewan that have a tremendous amount of football talent and potential. Everyone who wants to come can come. Last weekend in Weyburn, we had a good representation of younger athletes, some as young as 8 or 9. We had a few high school kids as well. We've got a good enough coaching staff that we can cover the variety of age groups and put in some meaningful work."
Sheridan says the kind of players that the camp is looking for are ones who have a good attitude and who are just looking for someone to help fill in the gaps for them as far as approaching the game of football.
"Well, one of my personal favorites when it comes to the absolute plethora of rhetoric and things that come out of football is that there are two things you can't coach, and that's attitude and effort," he said. "And my experiences with those two things, I played for Winnipeg for eight years and played in a couple of Grey Cups. If you have a good attitude and you have a great work ethic, we can fill in the gaps. We can teach you the skills. We can teach you the technical aspects of the game. Coming in with a good attitude and a good work ethic, willing to work, willing to be coached, those are the things that we really look for."
To sign up for the Outlook camp, you can go to go.teamsnap.com/forms/476275.
For more information, head to selectsfootball.com/camps.
