USD coaching staff to lead youth football camp in Fallbrook

The coaching staff of the University of San Diego football team will be in Fallbrook June 18 and June 19 to conduct a youth summer football camp at Ingold Sports Park.

New USD head coach Ron Caragher will lead the camp, and USD assistant coaches will join Caragher. “He’s bringing his entire staff with him,” said Allan Mangold, the organizer of the camp and the founder of North County Football.

Although Mangold himself is a Fallbrook Pop Warner coach, the camp is not affiliated with Pop Warner Football and Mangold created North County Football for the purpose of the camp, which originally was also to have included a session for players of high school age. Pop Warner Football has weight limits, but because the summer camp is not sanctioned by the Pop Warner organization it is open to children ranging from age seven through eighth grade regardless of the child’s weight.

“In large part what we’re trying to do is sort of get a return to fundamental football here in Fallbrook,” said Mangold. “I think where football has gone awry is the coaches who tell kids, ‘You stick with this and you’re going to go pro.’”

Mangold noted that most youth football players will not become professional athletes or even earn college scholarships. He expressed concern that many camps and youth football organizations focus on stars and ignore the needs of those whose playing careers will likely end at the high school level.

“I think the fun part of it’s missing,” he said. “That’s what you should be as a coach, instilling in your kids the love of the sport.”

Mangold’s goal for the program is for the participants to learn the benefits of the fundamentals of football. He hopes that the youth will learn lessons on life as well as positional skills. “These are the things that are important,” he said. “The kids who are out participating as athletes are students as well.”

Due to a situation involving an off-campus football clinic in Florida, all colleges are reviewing procedures of “satellite camps” to ensure compliance with National Collegiate Athletic Association prohibitions against recruiting players. College football coaching staff members are allowed to teach fundamentals at satellite camps, and there is no potential conflict when students are not of high school age. The planned Fallbrook camp for students of high school age would have been open to players from schools throughout the area in order to avoid illegal recruiting situations. Although the high school camp was scuttled due to the need to clarify satellite camp activities, Mangold hopes to implement the camp for older players in future years.

The clinics will actually encompass three days, as on June 16 a free coaches clinic for Pop Warner Football coaches will be held. All Palomar Conference coaches will be invited, and Caragher plans to participate as a speaker. Fallbrook High School coach Patrick Schmidt is expected to participate as a speaker, and other USD and Palomar Community College coaches will likely help train the coaches. Mangold noted that the coaches clinic will allow North County coaches to learn in Fallbrook rather than in San Diego.

The original plans included working with both high schools and Pop Warner organizations ranging geographically from Carlsbad to Lake Elsinore. “We don’t want this to be perceived as a partisan event even though it’s going to be held in Fallbrook,” Mangold said.

The use of Ingold Field rather than the high school field will help reduce the partisan perception, and other advantages of Ingold Field include physical space. “That gives us a little bit more room to spread out than just the high school,” Mangold said.

Mangold noted that Fallbrook High School would be a beneficiary of the football skills camp. “If you commit to the idea of a program then it starts at the youth league and it feeds up to the high school,” he said. “Pop Warner is an excellent feeder system for the high school.”

Since part of the objective is to coordinate youth programs and high school programs, high school coaches throughout the region will also be invited. “I’d like to start soliciting feedback from high school coaches this year,” Mangold said.

Coaches from San Diego State University and Palomar College will observe the camp and may participate in future years.

Mangold originally worked with Tim Drevno, who was the offensive coordinator for USD at the time and ran the camps held at USD. The discussion included the difficulties of young athletes traveling from North County to the USD campus.

“This is the first time USD’s ever ventured off campus to do a camp,” Mangold said.

Initial discussions involved one day of Pop Warner age and one day of high school age, although Mangold and Drevno agreed to the four-day format before the satellite camp situation eliminated the high school days. Mangold noted the match between USD and his objectives. “It’s a program that stresses fundamental, positional football,” he said of USD.

The Fallbrook camp will be a no-contact camp in which players wear shorts and shirts. “It will heavily stress fundamentals,” Mangold said. “At the youth level this is supposed to be a learning league.”

USD continued to be supportive of the camp even after USD head coach Jim Harbaugh was hired as Stanford University’s coach in late December and Drevno joined Harbaugh at Stanford. Assistant coach Ed Lamb became Mangold’s new contact at USD, and Caragher not only retained Lamb after being hired as USD’s head coach but also committed to the Fallbrook program himself.

The fee for the camp is $150 per player, although discounts for groups with adult volunteers can reduce that to as low as $100 per player and an additional $25 fee applies for walk-ups the day of the camp. “I would rather spend $100 through we don’t have Eric Parker and Keenan McCardell there but you also have a core group of coaches from a very successful program,” Mangold said.

Mangold himself played football at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View but did not play collegiate football. He remembers the youth camps which featured professional football players, but he also remembers high school play in which skills rather than stars were emphasized. USD is a successful Division I-AA mid-major college which focuses on skills and team play. “I think that very much ties into what we want to do,” Mangold said.

Mangold has coached Fallbrook Pop Warner for two years and has been involved for the past three seasons. His son is now 9 and his daughter, who is not in Pop Warner, is 7. Both children attend Bonsall Elementary School.

“What we’re trying to do is reconnect the high school and Pop Warner,” he said.

Mangold’s wife, Linda, has met with Fallbrook honorary mayor Rhonda Reinke, who has indicated a willingness to help. The honorary mayor is affiliated with the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce, and Reinke and Linda Mangold will also work to include the camp as a Fallbrook Visitors Bureau activity. Reinke and the Mangolds are also working with town merchants to distribute flyers for the camp.

Since the camp runs from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day with an 8:15 a.m. check-in time, families are invited to stay on-site or enjoy other amenities in Fallbrook and Bonsall. On-site activities for siblings include a jump house and other supervised child activities and grilled healthy lunches provided by Sweet Leilani’s (the players receive the same lunches) while a discount package provided at check-in will offer coupons to shops, restaurants, golf at San Luis Rey Downs, and horseback riding and games at Quail Haven Farm.

“What we’ve lost is the idea of football as a community sport and the importance of starting with the kids,” Allan Mangold said. “Ultimately what you’re going to have to have is the community buy in.”