Football University Returns in 2010
The FBU experience expands to 32 cities

Good athletes make good football players. Good athletes who are highly skilled make great football players.

The Idea
The idea behind the FBU Experience 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. The game 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.

This passion for elite training has spurred McGuinness to create Football University to provide top-level instruction at every position, and conduct the FBU Experience from late January to July, providing athletes enough time to apply everything they had learned to their upcoming season.

Successful Inaugural Year
The early 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. Players such as Ohio State's starting quarterback, the phenom Terrelle Pryor and Matt Barkley from the Los Angeles area attended FBU. Pryor went on to play in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl at the Alamo Dome in San Antonio. "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
Demand from coaches and parents to expand the camps led to the FBU we see today. Having trained over 2,500 elite athletes in their invite-only FBU experience, they are now expanding to 30 cities. McGuinness believes there is a lot to teach these elite athletes, especially since there haven't been many development opportunities geared just for them in the past. Everyone from wide receiver and quarterback to linemen, punters, and kickers are now benefiting from the position training position approach of the NFL pros that FBU offers at each national camp.

Top NFL Instructors
One of the featured instructors McGuinness reached out to was quarterback guru Tom Martinez from San Jose, California, who personally trained three-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady and Oakland Raiders quarterback JaMarcus 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.

Mike Kruczek, another featured instructor is a two time Super Bowl champion with the Pittsburgh Steelers and a distinguished college and professional quarterbacks coach working for coaches such has Bobby Bowden at Florida State. As a head coach at Central Florida, Kruczek led the Knights onto solid D-1A footing and mentored future NFL star Daunte Cullpepper. After a trip to the NFL with the Cardinals, Kruczek now lends his decades of expertise to up and coming quarterbacks training Matt Ryan into being the first Quarterback selected in the NFL draft by the Atlanta Falcons.

But what about everyone else? Besides the quarterback gurus, Blair Thomas, former #2 overall draft pick by the New York Jets, will tutor the running backs. Thomas has coached at the college level producing top fullback Stacey Mack of the Jaguars. 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 Athletic Republic who will be providing trainers for all camps. Athletic Republic runs elite training centers across the country and trains the top players in college and NFL with cutting edge equipment and training methods.

Cutting-Edge Training Technology
Athletes who attend the camp will train with the latest performance technology. High-definition video analysis at 500 frames per second is used to breakdown individual athletes' football technique. FBU also boasts a unique partnership with Athletic Republic. As the nation's most elite athletic training facilities, Athletic Republic will come into each of FBU's 30 locations and analyze the strength and conditioning abilities of each athlete, giving each FBU athlete the chance to take home vital knowledge and metrics. This allows each prep star the chance to analyze his skills and continue the upward progression of training and skill knowledge that will keep him in top-tier shape all season long.

Limited Slots Available for Elite Athletes
FBU is by the best, for the best. Each FBU Experience will have just a few slots for each grade level and will invite those athletes who are the best at each position. Working with a national network of scouts and coaches, FBU also partners with the Forbes Report as a partner in identifying top athletes.
The bread and butter of the selection process, however, are 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.

All athletes will currently be in the 6th through 11th grades 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. It is a serious three days of football, with the parents and coach very involved.

Cost: $40 Per Hour
Although the camp carries a cost, 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. By traveling to 32 markets, FBU makes elite training more available and more affordable to top athletes from across the country.