Students of Byu -Issaho Human Performance and Recreation are lacing their sneakers, developing training plans and directing exercises this summer while they direct local sports camps – annoying a real coach experience while supervising the next generation of athletes.
For two years, the Academy of Force and Conditioning of Byu-Assoho gave practical experience of experienced students with adolescent athletes in two five-day camps organized on campus.
This year’s camps are planned for the following dates:
- Force and agility camp: June 9-13, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
- Football camp: June 23-27, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Adolescent athletes interested in participating can register on the Academy of strength and packaging website. The price of the upstairs ends May 11and the final registration deadline is June 8.
Martin Dietze-Hermosa and Scott Flynn, teachers from the Department of Human Performance and Leisure, began the program.
“This is an opportunity for our students to work with members of the community, to refine their interpersonal skills and to work as a team towards a goal,” he said.
Aspen Boulter, a Junior of Sheridan, Wyoming, led with the Academy in 2024. As a major in physiology of the exercise, she appreciated the opportunity to consolidate the knowledge of textbooks with experience.
“Applying class equipment is something that I really like at Byu-Assaho. We would teach them explosive agility and energy movements, then take it and put it in a game,” said Boulter. “The coolest thing to see the students improving was their self -confidence.”
She explained that training last summer helped her decide “what (she) wants to do” for her career.
Ethan Spencer, also a junior studying the physiology of the exercise, shared that last year’s athletes participated in data collection for a research project. Before the camp, each athlete spent four different tests.
“They were able to use expensive technology to assess some of their sporting capacities, which, hopefully, will be used in the National Conference on the Academy (NSCAC) in July,” he said.
More than research, he said that he hoped that athletes will see how much they can improve “with just a little hard work and dedication and coherence”.
One of the things he appreciated on the campus was that the coaches also developed spiritually.
Sports in sport of Christ
In addition to the training that the athletes of the program receive, they are also able to learn in an environment that welcomes the mind. The athletes have learned that it is possible to have spiritual experiences, even if they simply run in the field and see examples of normal adults who live the Gospel.
“The athletes have seen the sides difficult, silly and also spiritual,” said Spencer.
Dietze-Hermosa encourages his coaches to use the same teaching methods he learned from his teachers, who led Ricks College Sports.
“When I was a student here, some of my teachers were coaches when Ricks still had sport. I admired their ability to train that one,” he said. “This attribute of Christ is something we are trying to highlight in the program.”
At the end of the camp, the athletes were invited to tour the campus. Just before the tour, his brother Dietze-Hermosa and his brother Flynn asked the coaches to share their reasons for choosing Byu-Idaho.
“We are on the ground, everyone was sweating, and just there, with 40 athletes and 10 coaches, the spirit was palpable,” said brother Dietze-Hermosa. “It was simply magnificent to see the coaches, my students, tear themselves away while sharing their experience with Byu-Assaho.”