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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Border League Football Camp draws region’s prep players

On the first day of summer, the parking lot at Central Valley High School is already packed by 9 a.m., but instead of big yellow school buses dropping off the collected students from the school district, on this June morning the buses have trekked in from both far and farther. Buses from Idaho are numerous and license plates from Montana are many.

Granted, not all of the cars, nor all of the buses for that matter, are there for the start of the annual Border League Football Camp, but the vast majority are, and there are more of them each year.

Since 2009, when three of the deans of area high school football coaching put their heads together and started the camp, the numbers have grown, both in terms of schools participating and in the number of football players involved.

This year the camp includes Glacier Peak, a Class 4A school from Snohomish, and Sentinel High School from Missoula. Camp regulars Post Falls, Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene, Gonzaga Prep, Lewis and Clark, Shadle Park, University, East Valley and host Central Valley, among others, get in plenty of work in the sunshine, frequently running drills and scrimmaging against each other instead of split-squad work against their own teammates.

Wander around and you see plenty of interesting sights.

Coeur d’Alene running timing drills with its offensive linemen. Central Valley quarterbacks working timing patterns with a host of prospective receivers. A Gonzaga Prep quarterback getting sacked by a stay-at-home Post Falls lineman.

For returning players, a camp is a chance to perfect their technique and cement their position on the roster. For the aspiring player, it’s a extra chance to impress his coaches.

And for coaches, it’s a chance to put eyes on a lot of players without the pressure of making roster cuts and creating depth charts.

And then there are afternoon training sessions that help kick-start the summer weightlifting program.

“Coach (Butner) told the (CV) kids that there were several players who started out on the C Squad at camp last year who ended up starting for us,” said former Central Valley coach Rick Giampietri, one of the camp’s founders. “It’s not about where you start. It’s where you finish.”

And like any team sport, the most a player can expect is an opportunity. With an opportunity you can impress a coach.

For a camp that started out as an alternative, it’s become a first-choice for a lot of area football programs.

“We used to go to the University of Idaho camp,” Giampietri said. “But that was about $300 per kid to go to the camp and it was just too much money for some kids. And on top of that there was weightlifting and speed camp and everything else. It was just too expensive for some of our kids.”

The coaches – starting with Giampietri, long-time University coach Bill Ames and Lake City coach Van Troxel – realized that there was a wealth of coaching experience available amongst themselves, facilities big enough to hold everyone and, most importantly, a need to create a more affordable alternative.

Giampietri handed over the head coaching job at CV to Ryan Butner last year, but he still helps with the Bears as an assistant coach.

But the programs he started to help players earn money to help pay for camp remains.

“We still have ways for kids to raise extra money to pay for camp with different fundraisers and things like that,” Giampietri said.

One of the highlights of past camps is gone this year.

Area college coaches, from the University of Washington and Washington State to Eastern Washington, Idaho, Montana and Montana State regularly put in an appearance at camp, talking to kids and keeping an eye out for the next college football star.

“They changed the contact rules so they can’t be here,” Giampietri said. “That’s too bad. There may be some small school coaches come by, though.”