Football University Returns in 08
After Sellout Enrollment in 07, Football University Will Train More than Just Quarterbacks in 2008

Good athletes make good football players. Good athletes who are highly skilled make great football players. That is the motto of an elite football camp named Football University, which launched a quarterback camp last year called Air7QBU. This new camp trained hundreds of quarterbacks in 10 cities, many of whom were top ranked in their region, their state, or the entire country.

Given the success of the camp and its sellout enrollment, the owners are expanding it to include twice as many cities in 2008, and to train all positions—including running backs, linemen (offensive), defensive backs, linebackers, punters, and kickers.

The Idea
The mini-camp idea was devised by Rich McGuinness, president of SportsLink, who also created the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, the national high school all-star game televised on NBC, which has showcased future pros like Reggie Bush and Vince Young back when they were prep stars.

As a wide receiver in college, McGuinness was struggling to catch footballs in practice despite being faster and quicker than most defensive backs he played against. After his junior season, he jumped the fence at Giants Stadium to meet Phil McConkey, a wide receiver for the New York Giants. “He was about my size and had my athletic ability, and he made it to the pros,” McGuinness recalls. McConkey gave McGuinness his phone number and the two talked for more than an hour that evening. “He set me straight and gave me a lot of great ideas,” McGuinness says. “Although I had received some good coaching, that time with him was worth a million dollars to me.” Unfortunately, McGuinness’s football career ended the following season due to a neck injury, but he still believes that phone conversation was a watershed moment.

McGuinness’s new passion became providing high-level instruction to elite football players. Over the past eight years, he has worked with the nation’s top prep athletes at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio. Many of these players dominate their local football scene because they are bigger and faster than the average high school athlete. But when they meet players of equal size and physical ability for the first time in San Antonio, it is eye-opening if not shocking. McGuinness welcomes these athletes by saying, “Welcome to the first day of the rest of your football career—where 4.4 speed and 300-pound linemen are the norm, not the exception.” At this level, the athletes need elite skills—not just impressive physical attributes—to stand out.

When he arrived on the national scene, McGuinness did not see any group providing such high-level instruction. “There were a lot of combines that tested but didn’t teach, and the college football camps were more about recruiting athletes, not instruction,” he says. So he started the mini-camp idea based on the NFL model of intense instruction over the course of one weekend, and looked for the best available NFL coaches and instructors in the country. “It’s not a camp, it’s an experience,” McGuinness believed.

McGuinness’s goal was to provide top-level instruction at every position, and conduct these mini-camps from late January to May, in order to provide athletes enough time to apply everything they learned to their upcoming season.

Successful Inaugural Year
The quarterback camps sold out in almost every market, and were well received by participants and their parents. The first-year camps were even featured on ESPN’s SportsCenter and HBO’s Real Sports.

Among the top quarterbacks in attendance was Terrelle Pryor from Jeannette High School near Pittsburgh, rated the nation’s top overall prep prospect. Pryor will also headline the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in January.

Among the top underclassmen in attendance was Matt Barkley from the Los Angeles area, who went to several of the camps. McGuinness noticed that Barkley had great touch and showed great accuracy, and predicted he will likely be a top candidate for the 2009 U.S. Army All-American Bowl.

The camp also trained the quarterback sons of Joe Montana, Jim McMahon, rapper Snoop Dog, actor Will Smith, Hall of Famer Frank Gifford, and University of North Carolina Head Coach Butch Davis.

“Watching these young quarterbacks develop almost overnight was exciting,” McGuinness says. “By the time the camp was over, their mechanics and footwork were vastly improved. It puts them well ahead of their peers for the following year.”

Besides the on-field instruction, all the quarterbacks broke down film in classrooms, heard from NFL coaches as guest speakers, and worked out with speed and strength instructors when they were not throwing footballs.

Including Other Positions
For the upcoming year, the camps will grow by another 100 athletes in each city by adding new positions. McGuinness stresses that each position camp will be run separately and have a focused curriculum and instructor just for that position, although it will take place at the same venue over the same weekend.

Since the camps already added wide receivers, adding defensive backs was a natural step. “We also added running backs, because like the quarterback position, the running back position has become more sophisticated and coaches are expecting featured backs to do more than run fast through a hole,” McGuinness says.

McGuinness is also excited about the addition of linemen, punters, and kickers. He believes there is a lot to teach these athletes, especially since there haven’t been many development opportunities for them in the past. Typically, the “skill” positions have had the most opportunity for extra work, such as 7-on-7 tournaments, but McGuinness believes every athlete on the field in today’s more sophisticated game is a “skill” player—especially linemen, punters, and kickers.

Top NFL Instructors
One of the featured instructors McGuinness reached out to was quarterback guru Tom Martinez from San Jose, Calif., who personally trained three-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady and Oakland Raiders quarterback JaMarcuss Russell, the number-one overall pick in last year’s NFL draft. “He was one of the original quarterback gurus in America, and I read a lot about him,” McGuinness says.

Martinez still works with Brady and tunes him up when needed.

Another top quarterback guru that McGuinness invited to teach was former Oakland Raiders Quarterback Coach and New England Patriots Offensive Coordinator Larry Kennan. Kennan trained NFL quarterbacks Eli Manning, Drew Brees, Alex Smith, Tim Couch, Chad Pennington, Byron Leftwich, Drew Stanton, Chris Weinke, and NFL alums such as Jim Plunkett, John Elway, Jeff George, and Drew Bledsoe. Three of Kennan’s clients have been selected first overall in the NFL draft (Alex Smith, Eli Manning, and Tim Couch). “Over his 30-year coaching career, Coach Kennan has trained more NFL quarterbacks than anyone I know,” says McGuinness. Coach Kennan currently serves as Executive Director of the NFL Coaches Association.

The other featured instructor is 21-year NFL veteran quarterback Steve DeBerg. The first “west coast quarterback” under the legendary Bill Walsh, DeBerg played in 207 NFL games and led the Kansas City Chiefs to consecutive playoff appearances. He passed for more than 34,000 yards, and ranks in the top-20 all-time for completions and yards passing. After his playing career, DeBerg served as the quarterbacks coach for the New York Giants and the Atlanta Falcons. He has tutored NFL stars like Dallas Cowboys Pro Bowler Tony Romo and the Chicago Bears’ Rex Grossman. “Given his long career playing, coaching, and thinking about the position, Steve is loaded with an amazing amount of positional knowledge,” McGuinness says. Early in his career, DeBerg even helped Peyton Manning study play action passing.

McGuinness says that all three quarterback instructors share two great qualities: They have trained the NFL’s best quarterbacks, and they have a passion to teach all ages. “I am thrilled they have agreed to take time away from their current NFL training to teach our invited athletes,” he says.

Indeed, McGuinness is excited about all the instructors featured at this year’s camps. Besides the quarterback gurus, he will call on Brian Mitchell, the former Washington Redskin and Philadelphia Eagle who played in the NFL for 12 seasons, to tutor the running backs. Mitchell will stress the running back skills that helped him set NFL records in career punt and kickoff return yardage. The defensive backs will be taught by 11-year NFL veteran and two-time Super Bowl winner Perry Williams, who played cornerback for the New York Giants and just trained Will Hill, one of the nation’s premier prep defensive backs. Former 49er offensive guard and all-pro Guy McIntyre will train the linemen and former Steeler all-pro Levon Kirkland will tutor the linebackers at most camps. Punting and kicking guru Bill Renner, who has several alumni in the NFL, such as Neil Rackers of the Arizona Cardinals, Steve Weatherford of the New Orleans Saints, Shayne Graham and Kyle Larson of the Cincinnati Bengals, Sam Koch of the Baltimore Ravens, and Josh Brown of the Seattle Seahawks, will tutor the kickers and punters.

The head speed and strength instructor of the camp will be Ken Croner, who runs the training for NFL athletes at Athletes Performance in Arizona, where many top athletes train, such as Brady Quinn, JaMarcuss Russell, and Mia Hamm. Croner spends his summers in Mississippi as the personal workout instructor for Brett Favre and has developed unique training perspectives for all positions. “It’s a phenomenal lineup of instructors this year,” McGuinness says. “It will be a privilege to work with these guys.” The camp will be announcing five new NFL instructors for the wide receivers, linemen, and linebackers in the next few weeks.

The camp will be directed on a day-to-day basis by former NFL player Creig Federico, who ran Scout Camp, which tested college athletes for NFL ability.

Cutting-Edge Training Technology
Athletes who attend the camp will train with the latest performance technology. Quarterbacks will train with a helmet cam, which follows eye movement and trains quarterbacks to look off defensive backs before throwing to their primary receiver. The high-powered camera clips to the side of the helmet. Every athlete will also be videotaped with a high definition slow-motion camera to break down their footwork and form at 500 frames per second. “Every invited athlete will see themselves like never before with these high def slow-motion video tools,” McGuinness says. “The technology is important for slowing down the fast game of football for our invited athletes, to teach skill and proper technique in throwing, catching, and footwork.”

Also supporting the camps will be several U.S. Army All-American alumni who are now in the NFL and have agreed to provide money to a scholarship fund for qualified athletes.

McGuinness sees a parallel between these camps and the elite baseball instruction across the country. “For top baseball players, you can play and find great instruction year-round,” he says. “You cannot find that in football, but this is a great first step.” Greg Lusardi, Head Football Coach at New Jersey’s Morris Catholic High School, echoes the same theme. “There is nothing offered with this caliber of instruction for elite football players during the off months,” Lusardi says. He had three quarterbacks attend the camp last year at Rutgers.

Limited Slots Available for Elite Athletes
Although McGuinness and staff will be keeping an eye out for the next class of U.S. Army All-Americans, the camp will have a strong emphasis on identifying and developing young talent. The mini-camps will have just a few slots for each grade level and will invite those athletes who are the best at each position.
The selection committee that picks the U.S. Army All-American Bowl teams works year-round to review roughly 1,000 athletes, and then narrows that list to 80 participants. FBU will work with the Forbes Report as a partner in identifying top athletes. “For FBU, we have identified many of the top high school athletes already with the Forbes Report, but we will need to identify the younger athletes,” McGuinness says. FBU has enlisted the help of youth football organizations like American Youth Football to help reach out to the youth community. “Youth coaches have been helpful in identifying their top athletes,” McGuinness says.

More helpful, however, will be FBU’s regional directors, who will have the chance to attend practices and games. Many of these directors are retired local coaches with more than 200 wins under their belt. One of the more notable directors is Ken “Sugarland Express” Hall, who is the all-time leading rusher in high school football history. By aligning with regional scouts, FBU is hoping to not miss the next Reggie Bush or Vince Young. “Extraordinary ability attracts a lot of attention,” McGuinness says. McGuinness points out that University of Florida quarterback Chris Leak was offered a scholarship in eighth grade.
McGuinness emphasizes that these mini-camps are not for everyone—just the minority of football players who, starting next fall, will be entering grades seven through 12 and have demonstrated elite ability, a serious work ethic, and a commitment to football as their primary sport. “FBU is for the athlete who has accomplished much or who is expected to accomplish much given his current or projected physical ability,” McGuinness says. It is a serious three days of football, with the parents and coach very involved. “We try to train the parents to understand what we have taught and what needs to happen for continued development,” McGuinness says.

The Publicity Factor
Besides the elite training, each athlete should receive some nice publicity from attending the camp. Several regional sports networks are interested in televising a show from the camp to highlight many of the elite athletes present. “We plan to produce a show from most mini-camps, which will air right before the high school football season in each market,” McGuinness says. His company will team up with national recruiting expert Tom Lemming, who for the past 20 years has produced the bible of recruiting, Prep Football Report, and helps select the U.S. Army All-American Bowl players. Together, they will produce a book called Next Up, which will profile each camp attendee and focus on the next generation of great football players. It will be available to college coaches and the media, and be published after the last camp is completed.

Cost: $40 Per Hour
Although the camp carries a costs, McGuinness says athletes and parents understand the value of the intense three days of training, demonstrated by its sellout enrollment last year in almost every city. Most athletes do not have to travel more than one or two hours to attend the mini-camp. In the past, other position camps were held in only one or two locations across the country and the airfare, hotel cost, and tuition made this type of training significantly more expensive. “By traveling to 20 markets, we are making elite training more available and more affordable to top athletes from across the country,” McGuinness says.

Outstanding Opportunity
Now 40 years old, McGuinness is excited about the upcoming year. “My only regret is that there was never an experience like this when I was younger,” he says. “I built this experience based on what I would have wanted as a young athlete.” For the athletes who will be invited, it should be an exciting, educational, and career changing experience. “I wish we could include more athletes, but the small class size and low athlete-instructor ratio is part of what makes this experience special,” McGuinness says. “We’re expecting only the best—this mini-camp is not for everyone.”