Perry County School District No. 32 is looking to build up its next generation of players at a younger age.
The Board of Education approved the formation of a youth academy at its last board meeting on June 29.
“We are going to start our focus on student-athletes as early as third grade,” Perryville High School Athletic Director Justin Dreyer said.
The district plans to have sport-specific camps, clinics and other activities for its athletes to help form a base for skill development at a younger age.
Dreyer gave an example of how this would work with a sport such as boys/girls basketball.
“We are going to have a camp for our third and fourth graders,” Dreyer said. “From that we are going to form a third and fourth grade team and we are going to pay for them to be in a league, like in Cape Girardeau. We will push for them to be in the league at the Park Center, but we want them to be in a few leagues playing at an early age.”
The goal is for the program to have a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade team. The school already has a seventh and eighth grade program.
“The players are just starting a lot earlier through this program,” Dreyer said. “Right now our cross country and track coaches are running the ‘Ready, Set, Run’ program at the Park Center all summer. Football will be a little different, but baseball we started a seventh and eighth grade team, and looking to start a fifth and sixth grade team the following year. We currently don’t have baseball as a middle school sport.”
Dreyer understands that the foundation of any sports program and school is the youth and wants the student-athletes to learn the game sooner.
Dreyer said there are two goals of the youth academy: to teach the fundamentals of the game and to make the players fall in love with the sport.
“We want to let the kids have fun, while also learning the sport,” he said. “In return with the academy, we hope to increase our participation and hopefully that would lead to more success on the field and the court. We want our programs to do well and if we want to do that we have to start younger. “
The current coaches of the specific program will run the academies for their sports.
“The coaches are really excited about the program,” Dreyer said. “They know it will mean more time, but in the long run it will also pay dividends for the particular programs.”
