ALTON - With Legion/summer baseball and camps in full effect as soon as the high school season ends, there isn't much time off for coaches.
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Scott Harper, the head coach for Alton High's baseball team, doesn't mind one bit. There's nothing he'd rather be doing than hosting a youth baseball camp during back-to-back-back 100-degree mornings.
"We set the dates a month ago and hope for the best," he said about the weather. "At least it's not raining," he added.
Harper mentioned that he had 36 kids register or either walk up to the camp which is a good number according to him. The camp is held for kids from third to eighth grade.
"You want to grow the program and grow the sport, so you're just trying to reach out. It's open to everybody but most of these kids are from the Alton-Godfrey area."
"You're kind of feeding into your program, but it's also giving back. Baseball is a fun sport and we want the kids to have fun with it. It gives them something to do. We just try to teach them the basic skills over these three days and let them have as much fun as they can."
The camp was held from 9 a.m. to noon Tuesday through Thursday of this past week.
Harper was the main man in charge and giving direction, but he also had a lot of guys from his high school team come out and help coach.
"It gives them a chance to do that. That's what they should be doing at their age," Harper said about his player-coaches for the camp.
"A lot of these guys are taking our school's summer P.E. class so they are here already. This way they can get to see what it feels like to be coaches of the game and give back to the sport."
On the warm Thursday morning, Harper began with the kids sitting in the bleachers and went over the basic fundamentals of catching and throwing. Shortly after they broke out onto the field where every kid had a partner and just played catch for about 20 minutes.
Plenty of water breaks were taken in between as Harper and the high school players made sure the kids stayed safe from the heat.
The kids were able to check out the batting cages later on in the day and the camp was finished up with the kids receiving their t-shirts.
All in all, Harper believed the camp to be a success and it's something he loves to do.
