As the warm days of summer slowly melt away and the hot August
nights dissipate one by one, attention quickly turns to kids
burrowing through hallways and books being re-opened. From the
pre-summer dreaded question by parents of,
”
What camp or activity can I put my child in so someone else can
watch them before they drive me crazy?
”
, the query now becomes,
”
When does school start?
”
As the warm days of summer slowly melt away and the hot August nights dissipate one by one, attention quickly turns to kids burrowing through hallways and books being re-opened.
From the pre-summer dreaded question by parents of, “What camp or activity can I put my child in so someone else can watch them before they drive me crazy?”, the query now becomes, “When does school start?”
Besides summer, camp season is also drawing to a close as another school year inches toward us, and in case you missed it I decided to let you in on some of the more popular and prestigious camps your kids missed out on this summer.
Most everyone sends their kids to conventional sports camps hoping that one week will not only make their child a superstar, but will provide peace and tranquility for a few precious moments each day.
If your kids loved soccer you could have sent them to the David Beckham soccer camp. Campers learned how to live, dine and shop in Beverly Hills while bunking up at the posh Beverly Hills Hotel.
Wolfgang Puck provided all the meals and campers appeared on the Jay Leno Show, attended press conferences, played soccer for 15 minutes, attended another press conference, did soccer drills for 30 minutes and attended another press conference.
Highlight for the week was the players got to play the USA national team at the L.A. Coliseum, and much like everyone else does, beat them 2-1.Parents received free tickets to the upcoming Spice Girls tour, which ironically comes to San Jose this fall.
Although it cost $10,000, your child could have been out of the house for two weeks attending the Barry Bonds Home Run Watch camp.
Campers traveled in their own customized tour bus complete with an ice cream wet bar and a mini-McDonalds buffet table and continuous reruns of America‚s Funniest Videos.
Highlights of the trip which included stops in Milwaukee, Los Angeles and San Diego, was each player donning a costume and participating in the Great Sausage Race in Milwaukee.
Imagine, no kids for two weeks while they watch history being made, or not made, and walk, after walk, after walk, after walk …
Touted as one of the most enjoyable football camps during the “dog days of summer” the Michael Vick Football camp was cancelled for obvious reasons.
For cycling enthusiasts there was the Tour De San Jose bicycling camp. Campers were taught how to not have Pepsi detected in your system, what caffeine drinks provide the most explosion per mile and how to avoid pertinent questions in front of an group of people.
Each day culminated with a carbohydrate overload meal at that „think out side the bun‰ joint. Highlights of the camp was a time trial through the streets of San Francisco at rush hour, a stage race up highway 17 at rush hour and watching a Critical Mass pileup in the city by the bay, at you guessed it, rush hour.
There was also the fashion camp for girls at the Los Angeles Sheriff‚s Correctional facility run by those two infamous girls from the Simple Life, Rock and Roll camp at the Beach Boardwalk run by all the groups appearing there that look like they‚re all from night of the living dead and the circus camp, which was actually run by the minor league team whose manager was thrown out of a game for sneaking up behind the mound while crawling on the ground. Anything that funny needs a tent pitched over it.
And folks, I‚m not making this one up. There actually was a secret agent camp that teaches kids about how to play paintball, martial arts, scaling a rock wall, use mini spy camera‚s, collect evidence, wear a hidden microphone, wear disguises and how to make and launch a stink bomb!
Yeah, that‚s what I want my kid doing the first day of school. Tossing a stink bomb into the bathroom and wearing a disguise so no one knows who did it!
Rich Taylor is the CEO and head instructor of California Pitching Academy and a scout for the New York Mets. Reach him at rj********@***oo.com.
