Football

camp returns to CHS

June 14, 2005

Players from more than half the state's high school football teams will get a head start on the season - and in some cases their college careers - next week when they attend the All Alaska Football Camp.

Held at Colony High School from June 19-22, the overnight camp is a four-day intensive for players and their coaches. About 320 athletes from places as far-flung as Kodiak and Fairbanks will participate in the program, widely recognized as the top football camp in the state, and one of the most unique camps in the nation.

What makes the program so special are the 20 college coaches who travel to Alaska from 14 colleges and universities around the country to teach the players individual skills, and assist the high school coaches with their team programs.

"The kids get great one-on-one time from top-notch coaches who take a real personal interest in them," Chugiak High School head coach Duncan Shackleford said in a press release issued by organizers of the camp. Shackleford, who has been coaching for 23 years and has been to hundreds of camps all over the country, plans to bring 50 or more kids to this year's camp. Shackleford has made 10 prior trips to the camp, as both head coach of the Mustangs and the Dimond High School football program.

"All Alaska Football Camp is one of the finest camps I've ever attended in all my coaching years," Shackleford said.

Started in 1992, the camp is now in its 14th year. Run exclusively as an individual skills camp for the first nine years, the camp was restructured in 2001 to accommodate entire teams.

"High school coaches love it because - with the help of college coaches - they can teach their kids to execute their offense and defensive schemes," founder and camp director Randy Klingenmeyer said. "It dramatically improves their skill level and their ability to execute."

The camp also provides an outstanding opportunity for upcoming Alaska seniors who have the ability to play at the college level. Each year, 25 to 40 kids statewide are recruited and signed by college coaches attending and teaching at the camp.

"Fifteen years ago, the Alaska football player was an unknown entity," Klingenmeyer said. "Very few high school players here had an opportunity to play college football. Today we have kids playing all over America."

"The exposure for recruitment is incredible," Buck Nystrom, Alaska's all-time winningest coach, who took the North Pole Patriots to the state championship last year, said. "I placed eight kids in colleges this year, thanks in large part to the All Alaska Football Camp. It gives these guys a chance to get an education and go on to do something more with their lives."

Dennis McCulloch, the head coach at Valley City State University (N.D.) and field director for the All Alaska Football Camp, is one of the top recruiters.

Over the past 10 years at the camp, McCulloch has signed more than 50 Alaska athletes to play in his program. And almost all of them end up with a college degree.

"Our graduation rate is almost 100 percent," McCulloch says. "I'd have a hard time picking a kid that didn't graduate."

This year McCulloch will have 25 Alaskan's on his team.

"Ninety-five percent of those kids were players I got to see at the camp," he said.

The camp is also largely responsible for helping improve the overall competitive level of high school football throughout the state. Alaskan teams are competing with and winning more against other teams from the

Lower 48.

"Nothing has had a greater influence on Alaska football in the past 15 years than Randy Klingenmeyer and the All Alaska Football Camp," said John Hosteader, who has been part of five state championship teams and is the new head coach at Eagle River High, which opens this fall. "Randy brought the camp to Alaska when there was none."