It might not have been a big start for a summer football camp at King’s Fork High School, but the last couple weeks have been a good start says King’s Fork’s head coach Joe Jones.

During the past two weeks, 21 youngsters have been out working hard in the heat. While Jones’ Bulldogs have been working through the summer ahead of the high school season, the campers got the chance to work ahead of Pop Warner season. Many Pop Warner teams have their opening practices this weekend.

“This has been important though because some of these kids haven’t played before and this is a good learning situation for them before they go into their first Pop Warner season,” said Jones.

Everyone, even the quarterbacks and receivers, worked on blocking technique and hitting tackling dummies. Every part of the morning and every drill was well-organized, which also means there wasn’t much down time between drills for the campers.

“That water machine, that’s the best thing we have this week,” said Tyler Woods, who will be playing Pop Warner for Nansemond Suffolk. Most of the kids at the camp on Wednesday are playing on Nansemond Suffolk Saint teams.

“We’re really ready,” said Tristan Buckner about starting practice in a few days, “but I’m also a little nervous. It’s good to be out here to build ourselves up for Saturday.”

The best part of the camp got a variety of answers.

“I got to see how fast I can run the 40,” said Jaysen Glover, who’s going to be on the Saints’ Mitey Mite team.

“Knocking down all of the tackling dummies,” said Jake Owens, who will be a Pee Wee player for Nansemond Suffolk.

“I plan for this to be two or three times larger next year,” said Jones. “I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t do a good job advertising this, but next year we’ll have some more publicity ahead of it.”