Former Golden Valley football star gives back to community with free youth camp
Kids were scattered across the field at Veterans Stadium on Saturday morning. They were running, jumping, kicking, throwing and catching balls as they made there way through eight different station spread out across the field.
In all, 150 kids participated in the morning session of Chris Randle's Achieve Dreams Youth Football Camp. Another large group was expected for the second session, which was geared toward high school players, in the afternoon.
"Man, it's crazy," said Randle as the first session wrapped up. "I didn't think we'd have this many. It's a good thing. Everybody had a good time. We had 150 for this group. We were expecting about 100. With all the walk-ups, we had a good turnout. There was a lot of energy. I think we were productive."
If the smiles on the kids' faces were any indication, the campers had a blast.
"I liked the catching," said Ronald Vue, who is a seven year old from Rivera Elementary. "This is my first time at the camp. I did some tackling, kicking, catching and running backwards. It's a lot of fun."
It's the second year Randle has returned to Merced to offer his camp, which was free of charge to all participants.
Randle was joined by former high school teammates, friends, college teammates and teammates from the Canadian Football League.
Together they instructed the kids through agility and fundamental drills.
"I love it," said Indianapolis Colts running back Robert Turbin, who played with Randle at Utah State and was the NFL guest coach at Saturday's camp. "To be able to share knowledge and teach the game to these kids. The best part is seeing these kids compete against each other.
"I didn't have anything like this to go to when I was a kid. That's what inspired me to do this."
Besides the jump in participants, the only big change Randle made for this year's camp was adding a kicking station. That's because former Golden Valley and Merced College kicker Adrian Trevino was able to help out.
The camp fell on Trevino's bye week with the Philadephia Soul in the Arena Football League.
"It was the perfect week for me to come help a really good friend and teammate," Trevino said. "Chris is such a great leader. He's the right person to run this camp. It's great for kids to be active and this gives them a chance to meet new kids. It's great for the community.
"As a kid, I don't remember going to any football or soccer camps here and I was born and raised in Merced. I had to go to Northern California or Southern California to go to soccer camps. This is the second year of this and the turnout is amazing."
Randle says the message of the camp was for the kids to not only figure out what their dream is, but to come up with a way to achieve that dream.
"I want them to know there is a way to achieve their dreams," Randle said. "They need to visualize it. For me, it helps to write down what I want to accomplish. Then I can figure out how to accomplish it."
This story was originally published May 12, 2018 at 3:22 PM with the headline "Former Golden Valley football star gives back to community with free youth camp."