Billy Henderson Football Clinic a Hit for Local Youth

As elementary and middle schoolers trickled on to the practice field at the YMCA on Saturday morning, Athens Academy’s Will Haver grabbed a football and began to play catch.

He tossed the ball to Shamir, an 8-year-old in a blue football jersey. The conversation flowed easily.

“Are you fast?” Haver, a junior asked.

“Mmmhmm,” Shamir said without hesitation. “That’s why I run track.”

And on Saturday, Shamir got one of his first tastes of football. At the 42nd annual spring football clinic, that’s the point.

“I remember coming out here, I must have been 10 or so, and doing the same things they did,” Haver said. “It’s really fun.”

The annual clinic, sponsored by the Champions Foundation Northeast Georgia, was founded by former Clarke Central coach Billy Henderson. This year’s installment runs for three weeks beginning at 10 a.m. each Saturday at the Athens YMCA on Hawthorne Avenue. Each clinic is free and open to ages 5-13.

Athens Academy coach Josh Alexander led the practice Saturday. Coaches and players from Athens Christian and Prince Avenue Christian lead the clinic on May 9. Cedar Shoals and Clarke Central close the clinic on May 16.

Saturday’s practice was a homecoming of sorts for Alexander, who volunteered at the camp when he was an assistant coach at Clarke Central under Steve Brooks. The former Archer assistant was named the Spartans’ head coach in January.

“It’s something that I really want to do,” Alexander said. “I’ve lived in this community and wanted to be part of it and it gives me an opportunity to be part of it.”

Alexander and the rest of his coaches and players encouraged the kids as they took them through conditioning, kicking, punting and tackling drills. There were distractions — one child, clad in shorts that came down to his ankles, danced to pass time between drills — but there was also learning.

“Get low!” one assistant said as a child ran through a tackling drill. “Keep your head up!”

“It’s fun seeing them develop into greater athletes,” Haver said. “Just down the road, they could be us in a couple of years.”

When the morning was over, nearly 20 kids huddled in the middle of the field to end practice. They watched Alexander as he gave them a quick tutorial on the game’s offensive positions. They answered when he asked them which football team was their favorite. Then they made their way back to the gate, where Henderson waited.

Henderson gave them a brief history of the clinic and took them through his youth football experience. It was a clinic like this one that launched his playing and coaching career.

“There’s no telling where I’d be right now if not for a program like this,” Henderson said. “I fell in love with it.”

Said Alexander: “That’s what it’s all about. When it’s all said and done, it’s about investing into the kids and investing into the community and just watching it grow in that manner.”