ALABASTER – On Monday, July 20, Thompson High School hosted its annual Warrior Youth Football Camp, a one-night event that gives kids from kindergarten through sixth-grade an opportunity to learn and play football.

The camp, which was free of charge, gave out t-shirts and promised a night of fun games and drills under the lights of Warrior Stadium.

Dakota Chapman, the recruiting coordinator for Thompson varsity football, said that the night was all about bringing the community together.

"It's just a time to get all the kids from our community, even surrounding communities, to come and spend some time just with our coaching staff, our players and go through some drills with us," Chapman said.

The camp's drills were separated by age group as they wanted to make sure each participant got the most out of the evening.

"For the older groups, they kind of have more defined roles," Chapman said. "Those guys know what position they're in, whether that be more skill or big with the O-line, D-line. Whereas the younger kids, everybody thinks that they're a quarterback, everybody wants to be the receiver. So, we kind of had four different stations of either throwing the football, running the routes, catching the football and then two different sets of tackling drills so they can, kind of get a big mix-match of everything that they could possibly do on the football field."

The night ended with a game of Warrior Ball, a small and quicker variation of two-hand touch football that Chapman noted the kids look forward to most.

One of Chapman's favorite parts is watching the varsity players step up and teach drills to the kids.

"We kind of tell them, you're the coach, you're all the coaches tonight. You know, you're going to run this drill and they do a great job with it," Chapman said.

Chapman especially is a fan when he sees his players repeat advice he gave to them.

The camp also involves the rest of the community as Warriors prepare for the varsity season.

"It's just big for us to see all the parents out there." Chapman said. "They kind of get a glimpse of a little bit of the future of what it's like to play on Friday nights, at Thompson High School and be on that special field at Warrior Stadium."

Lastly, it was really important to the entire Thompson coaching staff that they make the event Christ-centered.

"Coach Freeman, his biggest thing, he wants everybody to know, obviously for the kids is, first and foremost, this program that we have at Thompson is built on Christianity," Chapman said.