I’ll be running a camp for young football players next week. It’s on Aug. 13 and 14 right here at McMahon Stadium.
Geo was gracious enough to allow me to give a locker-room tour for the kids. It’s my first one and I hope I get everyone signed up to come out. I’m out here and I want to give back.
>> Learn more about Keon’s football camp
The biggest thing for me is that I wanted to start one back in my hometown but I ended up staying in Calgary this past winter. Then my wife gave me the idea that I should just start one up here.
It’s just something I want to do to give back to the kids and be able to teach them a bit during our bye week. It’s an opportunity to pass along some knowledge.
I know quite a bit about Calgary minor football with my son playing for the Cowboys last year. It gave me an opportunity to see how football is starting to grow in this province. It’s really starting to shine. I think that with more programs and camps like this run by the pros, it can only help.
In the States, there are so many camps run by professional athletes and it shows with high school kids and Pop Warner kids. I think if we can do something like that up here, they’ll learn the game and turn out to be better athletes.
We’re going to work on agility and speed techniques. We’re going to teach some defensive concepts. I’ve got a lot of my defensive buddies coming out — Juwan Simpson, DeVone Claybrooks, Brandon Smith — so we’re going to do a lot of concepts but we’re also going to work on awareness and reaction. Those are two of the biggest attributes you can have as a defensive player but can also be of benefit on the offensive side of the football.
I can remember the first football camp I went to. It was Eric Metcalf’s camp. I was living in Seattle, Washington, and he was just so much of an inspiration to me. A lot of people don’t understand that before Deion Sanders, it was Eric Metcalf.
He did such a great job with me. Getting a chance to know him and go to his camp was just such a joy. I was nine years at the old and I’m 28 now and I still remember that camp to this day. So it definitely had a lasting impression on my life.
Now to get a chance to hopefully be an inspiration for a young football player like Eric Metcalf was for me, that would be a true blessing. I want to serve. I’ve been blessed to be able to play professional football and I want to be able to pass some of this knowledge along.
Keon Raymond, #25
>> Raymond bio