MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – The Palmer Williams Group is proud to host its 12th Annual Athletic Youth Camp on Saturday, June 28th, 2025, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Highpoint Park in Eight Mile, Alabama. This FREE event is open to children ages 4–13 and promises a dynamic day of football skills & drills, cheer, games, giveaways, lunch, and family fun.

Founded by former NFL and University of Alabama athletes Sherman Williams and David Palmer, the Palmer Williams Group has spent over a decade using the power of sports and mentorship to uplift youth across the Gulf Coast. This year’s camp is made possible through generous sponsorship from Coca-Cola United, NFL Foundation, Greer’s, and Publix.

Attendees will be coached by a lineup of former NFL players, local college athletes, and cheerleaders who will guide participants through energetic drills and motivational talks. The goal: instill values of teamwork, discipline, and confidence—on and off the field.

“This is more than just football—it’s about changing lives,” said Sherman Williams. “We’re giving these young people positive role models, life skills, and an unforgettable experience.”

Registration is free and now open at www.palmerwilliamsgroup.org.

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“Kids are getting lazier as we speak and I didn’t want my daughter being on the television at all,” Elizabeth Wilson of Onset said. “She needs to be out and about and I want to make a positive impact not just on her life but on more kids’ lives.”

So Wilson decided to take action and started her own chapter of Playball, an international organization dedicated to helping kids develop through sports.

“Our mission is to promote physical, emotional, social and cognitive development in kids,” Wilson said.

Wilson’s chapter of the program is based in Falmouth and serves three age groups, 18 to 24-months-old, 2 to 6-years-old and 7 to 10-years-old. Each program has a 30 session curriculum broken up into beginner, intermediate and advanced sections which have a 10 session curriculum each.

She explained the program is set-up almost like a classroom, where kids can be active and get their energy out.

“We have our spots as if we’re representing desks in a classroom but we’re outside,” she said. “We show them a skill and then the kids do it and then we move on to the next one.”

The skills range from sport specific movements like free-throw shooting in basketball or an overhead soccer throw-in, to refining fine motor skills. Each activity is done in a way that is fun for the kids, Wilson said.

“We do a lot of planks but we turn it into a game,” she said. “We’ll say we’re little alligators and then alligator walk bit by bit. It looks like we’re playing, but we’re playing with structure.”

Wilson participated in the program as a student in South Africa and she credits it for her lifelong love of sports. She came to the U.S. with hopes of travelling the world and after settling down with her husband in Onset, she felt a call to get kids up and moving when her now 3-year-old daughter was born.

Thinking back on her own time in Playball, she decided to bring it to the South Coast for the first time in the program’s history.

Prior to officially establishing her own Playball chapter, Wilson said she tested the program out on her own three-year-old daughter and her friend’s kids over a period of six months.

“I saw growth in my kid and my friend’s kids so I immediately said I’m just going to continue by buying my franchise,” she said.

Wilson officially began her classes five months ago and has already been successful. So much so that she recently signed a five year contract with Playball to help keep her chapter running.

So far, Wilson has seen over 100 kids come through her program with each showing signs of growth in a short period of time.

“One kid started when he was two and he’s three now and Playball took him from being unsure about a whole bunch of skills to talking to the friend next to him saying ‘hey could I help you,’” she said. “When he started he wanted nothing to do with the other kids and wanted to be by himself but now he’s very contained, sits still, listens, waits for instructions and follows through.”

She added the program is still young but continues to grow as word of Playball continues to spread. She said the next step for Playball is to get it into area schools and incorporate her program as a part of the school’s physical education program.

Despite hearing repeated no’s from various school districts, she got her first yes and is beginning classes at the Discovery Pre-School in Buzzards Bay.

“It’s the ultimate program and it makes me giddy on the inside,” she said. “It makes me want to continue this everyday.”

From playing on the field to now standing behind the plate, Gabrielle Potts has always found herself at a Little League^® diamond. At just 13 years old, while most were still dreaming of playing at the next level, Potts took a different route — stepping onto the field with an indicator in her hand instead of a glove. What started as just a way to stay involved in the game quickly turned into a platform to give back to the community.

Now, a seasoned volunteer who umpires about 50 games a year is not only calling balls and strikes — she is shaping the next generation of Little Leaguers^® and building a connection with the community.

“Little League umpires are more than just rule followers; we end up being coaches, cheerleaders, and even shoe tiers,” said Potts. “I think we all step into informative roles naturally, but during the regular season, it’s knowing you play a key role in the foundation and being someone who the players remember. It’s a community where kids have one more person in their lives giving them support.”

Potts is one of the few female umpires in the Danville, Vermont area, empowering young girls to dream bigger. She never would have imagined her adult self to still be involved with sports, but her dreams have been renewed, and her life is bigger than before.

This year, Potts was selected as one of the female umpires to participate in the second Maria Pepe Little League Baseball^® Legacy Series, a weekend dedicated to showcasing girls in baseball.

To learn more about her experience as a female umpire, Little League sat down for a “Full-Count Conversation” with Potts during the 2025 Maria Pepe Little League Baseball Legacy Series.

1-0 Count: As a former player yourself, how, as an umpire, do you like to connect with the players?  

I like to start every game by introducing myself to the catcher. I definitely like to read my catchers, but I normally start off with a joke because I feel like it just lightens everything. They have one of the hardest jobs on the field, so I want to start off by making things light, introducing myself to them, and welcoming them to the plate. I also like to make sure they are okay; we both get hit by wild pitches. So, a lot of the time, if they just got hit with a foul ball, I am going to look at them and say, ‘I am going to go get the ball, you stand up and stretch.’

1-1 Count: What advice would you give to a young umpire who is just getting started?    

Find a mentor. I think the hardest thing in the world is trying to do any of this stuff alone. Just from when I went down to the East Region and started the umpire clinics there, the mentorship that I have received is huge. I had mentors back home, but they were not pushing for this caliber of game and experience. So, find yourself a mentor because you are going to have tough games. Find somebody that you can release all of that to. Find somebody who can help you through, show you the cool equipment versus the chunky equipment. Find somebody to help you and guide you, someone who is there for the good games and supports you. One of my mentors just umpired a state championship game last year, and I went down with him; it is just one of those things that you can support each other through, and that’s important.

2-1 Count: In what ways do you like to prepare for a game?  

There are two different ways I like to prepare, and it depends on whether I am in the field or at the plate. At the plate, I typically like to be alone and do my thing to get in the zone. I am a person who believes that I am a student of the game, and the game is always teaching me something new. I like to go over the hard plays I’ve had, and if this situation happens again, how am I going to handle it? Mentally, I go through a checklist. Do I know these two teams? What did you see the last time they played? I think the more that you can prepare for the normal means that when the abnormal comes, you’re already ready, you’ve discussed the basics. So, now, it’s something different, and you’re not trying to catch up to yourself.

2-2 Count: What inspires you to continue volunteering with Little League and giving back to the community?

I think we all need to step back and look at the experiences we had as kids and think about how we can get back involved with our community. I think as adults, we all have this nostalgia. As an adult who has no children, I have 11 nieces and nephews, so I am always at the ball field. All of them play youth sports, and it was a big part of my life, so it propels me to keep going out there, and it makes a difference. It is one of those things that we all have hard games where we don’t know what our strike zone was, or had a coach going at us the whole game. But, for every game that is like that, there’s a game where the player gets up to the plate and says, ‘you’re my favorite umpire’ or a catcher says, ‘I love when you’re behind me because you’re going to call a fair game.’ So, every time you have a rough game, there are those games that just make up for it, and you know that you’re making a difference. It makes a difference for a lot of people to see women on the field. When you get stopped by a grandma who never had the opportunity to play, and she says, ‘When I see you, it makes me happy because I went through so much, and seeing you out there makes it all worth it.’

3-2 Count: How do you incorporate your full-time job as a graphic designer into your role with Little League? 

I started working for myself a few years ago. Before, I was making a few shirts here and there, but now it is more of a full-time business. I have made a couple of the local Little League uniforms or had sponsorships on their uniforms, which has been really cool. I am working on building up a store with my designs that are based around sports. It is one of those things that I try to design based on the local atmosphere and what people are looking for, and it has been really fun for me. This year, being an umpire at the Maria Pepe Legacy Series, I brought an umpire gift for everyone. Everybody got a t-shirt that I designed that has a female umpire on it, which is something that, as females, we don’t get a lot of swag that has a female on it in general. So, everybody is walking home with a ‘Don’t be a lady, be a legend’ shirt.

Interested in becoming a Little League umpire? Visit LittleLeague.org/Umpires to learn more. 

Grimes County Youth Football Association board members distributed fruit cups and cold water to children at Magnolia Plaza, Allen White and Northwood Apartments (formerly Laredo Heights), June 22, to help children beat the heat and stay fueled up. GCYFA teams also distributed fruit cups and water to Golden Creek Nursing Home. 

 
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