LaFollette Middle School hosted a youth volleyball camp on June 16, 17 and 19 for kids from third-grade to eighth-grade.
“We’re just learning the fundamentals of volleyball,” said Jackie Pyle, head volleyball coach at LaFollette Middle. “We’re learning how to dig. We’re learning how our steps go for spiking and learning how to serve at this point.”
About 30 kids attended the camp, Pyle said.
“For our first year ever doing it, I think it’s been a very great turnout,” Pyle said.
Volleyball youth camp, locally, takes on perhaps an even more critical importance than the youth camps of sports with established local leagues for elementary-aged students, such as football, basketball, baseball and soccer.
“I’ve seen a huge improvement, especially with their passing and how they’re staying low,” Pyle said about the campers on the last day of camp, June 19.
That progress is key, as sixth-graders Pyle sees at LMS tend to have limited experience with the sport.
“It’s very little experience, and we spend that whole, pretty much, year, getting them up to par,” Pyle said. “And they see little bit of time on there, and this right here, having these camps would get them already established and being ready to be on the floor come sixth-grade year for JV.”
Pyle is entering her second year as head volleyball coach at LMS.
“This is a very important camp because again, volleyball’s a growing sport,” Pyle said. “Getting these kids in at a younger age, helping them, will help them transition into middle school very well and then onto the high school program, as well.”