AN AFTERNOON AT RAMS CAMP : Rams Encounter Some Happy Campers : Football: Team’s practices at UC Irvine provide enough of a distraction for youths to cause concern among their counselors.
Some enthusiastic Ram fans have attended the Golden West Soccer Camp on the UC Irvine campus this week. Barry Turner, a counselor at the camp, is not one of them.
“He (Turner) said if he heard the word ‘Rams’ again, we’d have to run,” said Max Gray, a 14-year-old soccer player.
Turner’s threats didn’t seem to be working. He and other counselors at the Golden West and UCI Anteater sports camps have had a difficult time keeping their campers focused on their own sports, what with the Rams training on an adjacent field.
While the rest of the Irvine campus seems to be going about business as usual, the children of the Anteater Sports Camp chant, “Let’s go Jim Everett! Let’s go!” as they walk by the Rams’ quarterback, who was throwing warm-up passes at the beginning of Friday’s afternoon practice session.
“All our kids are really young and they’re all excited to have them (the Rams) here,” said Mike Gartlan, a UCI soccer player and counselor at the Golden West camp. “Every time we break for lunch we have to say to the kids, ‘Leave the Rams alone. They have to do their jobs.’ ”
Kris Christy, a counselor at the Anteater Sports Camp, said that though the Rams’ presence is exciting for the kids, it is also a definite distraction.
Golden West camper Mike Brooks, 12, has already collected autographs from Everett and Flipper Anderson and will continue to risk punishment from Turner. “I want to get (Aaron) Cox and Curt Warner next,” Brooks said.
Paul Thompson, another counselor at the Golden West camp, said one of his campers has collected 21 autographs since the Rams have been at Crawford Field, and that others have been bringing footballs and trading cards to be autographed in the same bag with their cleats and soccer gear.
Thompson is trying to help out by chasing autographs for his campers. Thompson has been bringing a camera to take pictures of the Rams and has promised some of his charges that he will try to get pictures of their favorite players autographed.
“The kids love to go hang around where the (Rams) trainers are,” Thompson said. “If they can go get taped up where the players are, they’ll go and get taped up with them and stare in awe at these huge football players.”
The campers’ excitement seems to be contagious. Turner joked that he was considering trying out with the Rams as a kicker.
“For some of the kids, it is a distraction,” Turner said. “I had to threaten the kids a bit. . . . But I suppose it is exciting for the kids to have them here. It’s just tough to get a soccer camp going.”
Though the Rams are distracting the children now, the Golden West counselors hope they can use the Rams to inspire their soccer players in the future.
Turner and the other counselors said Ram kicker Mike Lansford, a former soccer player, will speak to the campers next week.
But as for keeping the campers totally focused on soccer, that doesn’t seem likely.
After the Rams left the practice field, a pack of about 10 boys roamed Crawford Hall, where the team’s locker room is located.
“Where did Flipper Anderson go? . . . He went that way! . . . Did he go that way? . . . Did we miss Flipper Anderson? . . . He went that way!”