Column: Friday "Knight" Lights Football Camp
NDHS head coach, Brian Flynn talking to athletes before the combine. {Brooke Maners/Davidson Local}
NDHS football players, Zaylen Hayes, Jeramie Hungerford, and Damani Chhorn encourage youth athletes during the L-drill {Brooke Maners/Davidson Local}
Friday evening, June 30th, 2021 local youth, and many future black knight hopefuls, kindergarten through eighth grade showed up to Palmer Field, at North Davidson High School for the annual, “Friday Knight Lights” football combine.
The athletes were encouraged to bring their cleats, tennis shoes, and good attitudes. The camp was organized and instructed by North Davidson’s High school football head coach, Brain Flynn, his staff, as well as current NDHS football players. Throughout the combine you can hear their booming cheers of encouragement and praise to each of the young athletes, and see them demonstrating proper techniques at each drill station.
Brody Maners, rising sophomore and football player for NDHS, who helped out with the combine says, “It’s exciting to be a part of the camp and help with the kids. I remember attending this same combine for several years myself in the past. It helped me to improve my skills, and I hope I can give the encouragement to these kids that I remember getting when I was their age.” Maners, proudly shares he was especially excited to be out on the field with one of the younger athletes attending for his first year. His younger brother, Caleb Grant, is a rising third grader at Midway Elementary school. Grant will participate in football for the first time this season. Maners smiled and said, “yeah he’s little, but he’s super fast, tough as nails, and completely fearless” and that's exactly what Grant showed everyone at the event.
The boys and girls, (yes, several girls too) were separated by age into groups with several combine instructors for each of the divided groups. At registration each athlete was given a score sheet, where their performance would be recorded after each station.
The camp events included combine testing, pro shuffle, broad jump, vertical test, 40-yard dash on a laser timer, L-drill, punt, pass and kick competitions, and position specific drills.
Everyone seemed to be having a blast, and the atmosphere most definitely created some friendly competition amongst the kids. You could see the determination in the faces of all to perform at their absolute best ability, and watch as they compared their score sheets with their peers after each event.
As the high school camp instructors cheered on the young athletes in the drills, there were a couple stand-out athletes of the night. Rising eighth grader at North Davidson Middle, Colby Williams ran the fastest 40 time of the night at 5.2 seconds, while also dominating several other events. Another athlete to keep your eye on is, upcoming seventh grader at North Davidson Middle, Christian Vences, as he dominated both the throwing and kicking competition in his respected age group.
The youth most definitely seemed to have a fun night battling, pushing themselves, competing with each other, and the overall camaraderie of their peers and the instructors. Also, seeing the obvious hearts, and the abundance of encouragement of the combine instructors, it’s difficult to tell who had more fun under the Friday night lights on Palmer field. However, one thing is clear after seeing the skill, talent and enthusiasm everyone involved brought to the event, the future of football for the Black Knights certainly seems to be bright, and this community event was a great way to kick-off the football season for all of Davidson County.
