CRESTVIEW — Plans are in the works for another busy summer at Twin Hills Park in Crestview.
The park will host a variety of youth sports camps ranging from fishing to volleyball.
All of last year’s instructors will return for another year, except for soccer instructor Phil Rose, whom Crestview High School boys soccer coach Scottie Milton will replace.
Parks and Recreation Department supervisor George Hillsman said Milton’s selection arose because they want to use local high school or middle school coaches whenever possible.
"With coach Milton doing our camp this year, you will have someone from the city helping these kids, as opposed to someone outside eventually trying to be pulled out of the city," Hillsman said. "From what I've been told, quite a few players that went through the other camps are now down in the south end (of the county) playing for the other guys. So we want to keep our home-grown (athletes) home."
Hillsman said the number of camps give aspiring athletes numerous opportunities to find sports they enjoy.
"You may have a kid that has been playing a team sport all of their short life and then they may go into something like tennis, which is an individual sport, and find out they excel more at it than they do in a team sport," he said. "I think the more things a child can learn the better they are. It will give you a shorter period of time to find out if that's what they really want to get involved in and if that's what they are going to try and excel in.
"A lot of times I've seen kids sign up for a sport and a week or two into it — not even a game — into practice and they said, 'Mom, dad, this isn't for me.' And the parent had lost the money. And money is hard to come by these days."
UPCOMING SPORTS CAMPS
Camps — which range from $30 to $45 — begin June 17 with the girls basketball camp and the first of two volleyball camps. Shoal River Middle School boys basketball coach Mitch Buckelew will lead the girls basketball camp and the boys basketball camp. The girls camp is open to girls ages 7-12.
Other events are as follows:
•Boys basketball camp: July 8-12, for ages 7-9 and 10-12.
• Kelly Buckelew will lead volleyball camps for ages 9-11 and 12-14.
• Second volleyball camp: June 24-28.
• Soccer camp: June 24-28 for ages 4-5 and 6 and up.
• Fishing camp, with Crestview High School Outdoors Education teacher Ernie Martin: June 25-28. For ages 5-12; limited to the first 20 kids to register. Campers under 9 must have a parent with them.
• Tennis camp: July 8-12. Early session for kids 6-8 and later session for those 9-12. Moya Moore, a former Crestview High School tennis standout who now plays for Birmingham-Southern University, will lead the camp.
TheParks and Recreation Department and the Crestview Police Department will offer a free bicycle safety course on June 18 and June 20, among other free activities.
Registration for football, cheerleading and soccer runs through June and ends July 11.
Randy Dickson is the Crestview News Bulletin’s sports editor. Email him at randyd@crestviewbulletin.com, tweet him @BigRandle, or call 682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Summer camps returning to Twin Hills