Miles of Smiles

Like all good football coaches, Lely's Ben Hammer is goal oriented. But the Trojans’ third year coach had one overarching goal for this year’s Lely Youth Football Camp. And judging by the smiles on the faces of everyone involved, it was mission accomplished.

“The number one goal is to have fun,” Hammer said as he looked over a sea of smiling faces on day one of his free three day camp at Trojan Stadium. "Whether you're one of our adult high school coaches, a player coach, a little kid out here doing camp, somebody trying football for the first time, the only measurement that I look for at camp is 'do they come back next year for camp?' And I think we've got like 42 that have been here all three years. That's out of the 67 that are signed up. And I'm not sure how many walk-ups we had. So, the number one thing is to have fun. Second is to learn the basics of football in a safe way. We want to make sure that we teach proper tackling techniques, because that's something that obviously is a hot word throughout the football community. We teach the basics, so that the kids can be successful as they go through their Pop Warner careers and get older and eventually get to the high school level."

Hammer, who has finished with 5-5 and 7-5 records in his first two seasons at Lely, believes in investing in the community. It’s a lesson he instills in his coaching staff and players.

“We're a community driven, community supported team,” Hammer said. "I think it's important to teach our kids that it's important to pour back into your community. And as you can see, we've got a bunch of kids out here working and coaching and doing the best they can to pour back into their community. I think we've got every single youth organization represented. It was free for everybody. Nobody had to pay to be here. We have three sponsors, Windermere Sustainable Car Care, C.J. Noel Insurance, and Foxboro Sports Tavern, to help pay for the t-shirts. Everyone's going to get a t-shirt. We're excited about the future of our program and the future of football in Collier County.