On Saturday, 09/06/2016, the second trainings camp of the 24/7 American Football School took place. This time it was about 70 players and coaches who met on the training grounds of the Stuttgart Scorpions called „Auf der Waldau“ to hold a professional American Football Camp.
Among the participants, there were players as well as coaches from the different leagues of Germany, who travelled from every corner of the country – coming from regional leagues up to the GFLII and the GFLJ – to Stuttgart to join the 24/7 AFS’ camp.
Under the supervision of the experienced coaches, Martin Hanselmann, Dominic Hanselmann, Deejay Anderson and Andy Meyer, the players’ day was all about the topics „Zone coverage Concepts & Techniques“ und „How to beat Zone coverage“. The coaches Martin and Dominic Hanselmann talked to the offense players about QB and WR and taught them about their individual techniques before using the new knowledge practically on the field. On the other side of the field, Deejay Anderson and Andy Meyer taught the LB and DB about zone coverage techniques. The topic CONCEPT COACHING was again highlighted during practice.
As usual at the camps of the 24/7 AFS, the day started with the registration of the participants and distribution of the camp shirts and camp books. Before practice started, the players were prepared for the upcoming performance by the physical therapists Marius Max and Jackie Beckers through physiotherapeutic treatment and taping.
The first American Football training session started with a theory session, the so-called Chalk-Talk, during which the coaches Martin Hanselmann and Andy Meyer prepared their groups for the upcoming practice and installed the play book. After the 40 minute theory session, they finally entered the field to start with the practical sessions. First, the individual position groups worked on their specific techniques in order to prepare the different play systems.
The focus of “zone coverage” was put on cover 2 and cover 3 in the defense. It was important for Coach Andy Meyer that all the participants master the On-Snap-Footwork for the particular coverage and understand and perform the coverage landmark system.
Different combinations were explained for the offense to tackle the particular zone coverage as well as the individual techniques and the necessary basics in order to enable a well-done performance.
In the next practice unit, the players could show what they learnt in the individual sessions – first in 2on3 Half-Line-Drill, followed by a7on7 Skeleton. All the players participated with great motivation and ambition. Thus the coaches saw a lot of progress on both sides of the ball. The Walk-On-Coaches were very interested in the matter and jumped right into helping the coaches with their players.
After the lunch break the second part of the training day starts right away starting as usual in the classroom. Defense coach Andy Meyer talked first about Cover 3 Concepts and Techniques to the defense players. The offense players were first taught about the urgency of details by Offense coach Martin Hanselmann. It was really important to the coach that the participants can apply the drills, which they learnt, at home as well.
Afterwards they went on the field again to start the second field unit of the day, where Dominic Hanselmann did the warm up and preparation for the practical part.
While the defense players learnt about their individual coverage techniques of cover 3, the focus of the offense lay greatly on the understanding of “spacing” and “separation”. Again they started to apply what they had learnt in a 2on3 Half-Line-Drill before things got heated in a 7on7 Skeleton. The participating players were all excited to use their knowledge and motivated to apply it on the field. So the competition started and made the final skelly a highly competitive game. Everyone was obviously enjoying the camp of the 24/7 AFS.
After the camp, the organization team was more than happy with the motivation of all of the participants. “The camp was great fun again. And it is nice to see how fast a single player can improve his individual technique after two training sessions”, states offense coach Martin Hanselmann enthusiastically.
We, the organization team of the 24/7 AFS, would like to thank all volunteers, staff members and coaches as they have been a good help organizing the American Football Camp.
Thanks to the Stuttgart Scorpions as well for the great support and providing the training grounds.
We thank our partners Doc-A-Sports, Agentur MMS and Sportmed24 for their support, without which the organization of this camp would not have been possible.
