Justin St. Ours | Daily Press Gladstone Football Skills Camp attendees run through a drill Wednesday at Gladstone.

GLADSTONE — As summer marches on, August is rapidly approaching. With it, comes the emerging Gladstone tradition of a football skills camp.

“We’ve been doing this the last three years in a row, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger each year,” Gladstone varsity football coach and main impetus for the camp Jeff Hansen said. “It seems like we get a lot of kids. The turnout is really good. It’s a real positive experience.”

The camp focuses on teaching fundamentals to a wide age range of attendees.

“It’s a four-day camp,” Hansen said. “The first couple of days, we invite upper elementary to junior high or middle school type age kids to run through the basic drillwork and fundamental drillwork that we do for our football players.

“They also get to do that with our high school players. It’s really positive for those kids to get to interact with those players, see how they work and also see how to play really good football. We teach fundamental tackling, fundamental blocking, fundamental offensive skills, and it’s just a lot of fun.”

The goals for the camp are multi-faceted, but one Hansen explained was getting kids involved with the Gladstone football program.

“(Our goal is to) get kids involved with football, get involved with our program, get to meet our older players and see what good football on that varsity level looks like, and to learn how to play the game as safe as possible,” he said. “That way, they can be healthy players throughout their playing career.”

Another goal is just to give back to the community that supports the program.

“It’s a way for our program to give back to the community,” Hansen said. “We put it on each year, and it’s free for the kids. The campers that come out here and participate all get a free shirt, and they get to get excited about Gladstone football and have a good time.

“Our community supports us so much when it comes to attendance at games, or when we do fundraisers our community just comes out to support them. We want the ability to put some of that back into the community and get kids involved in something positive. I really believe that there are some kids that maybe can’t afford to pay a fee to come to a camp but want to be part of it, so we’re going to give that opportunity to the youth in the area.”

Aside from that, Hansen was excited to reunite the group and get excited about the upcoming season.

“It’s a good chance just for all the football guys to get together again,” he said. “Once we get to this stage of summertime, you can start to feel the juices flowing for football again. I think it’s fun for the sake of camaraderie and knocking the rust off a little bit just to get back together. You know, get those good vibes going again, and just seeing all the guys and the other coaches is a very positive time for the program.”

Hansen was happy with the turnout from the current Gladstone players to help out the younger attendees.

“We had a lot of kids show up,” he said. “I was really, really happy with the number … all the way through varsity, jayvees and freshman, all did a great job interacting with the kids and made sure the experience was a positive one for them.”

Ultimately, Hansen felt it came down to enriching the community.

“We’re happy to do it as a program because football in Gladstone is a great tradition, and it’s a fun tradition for our community and our school,” he said. “We just want to pay our community back a little bit for the support they give us.”