05/12/97 TODAY'S TRAINING GROUND FOR TOMORROW'S JOCKS

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TODAY'S TRAINING GROUND FOR TOMORROW'S JOCKS
The 13-year-old boys' baseball team coached by Marietta (Ga.) pathologists' assistant
Bob King practices 10 hours a week year-round. Yet most won't even earn a place on the local high school roster, King figures.
As more kids participate in a wider array of sports--and competition at the high school level intensifies--summer sports camps have become a logical training ground to give kids an edge. Many camps reported a 50% increase in attendance last summer. The largest spike in campers comes from female athletes: More than 2 million high school girls currently participate in a sport, and that number is increasing 5% annually, according to the National Federation of State High School Assns. There is a camp for every sport, no matter what your child's skill level--including nontraditional ones such as mountain biking and white-water rafting. Many programs have mid-June deadlines, so you'll need to register soon.
Recognizing this emerging market, sports academies and companies such as Nike are sponsoring programs that promise something for everyone, including parents. For example, at Nike's Pebble Beach golf camp--$1,250 for two, minus lodging--adults can join their children, age 7 and above, for a week of instruction and play.
If your child's goal is simply to improve for high school athletics or learn the fundamentals of one sport, a nonboarding summer camp run by the local high school or college is probably sufficient. Here, for an average cost of $500 per week, kids receive instruction from college-age athletes.
DAILY ROUTINE. But if your child wants more intensive instruction, consider an academy, many of which can be found by running an Internet search using the key words ''sports camp.'' Although they're open to anyone, sports academies typically are geared toward those with real athletic potential. Most cost around $3,000 for a month-long residential stay and allow kids to concentrate on one sport but receive exposure to a number of others. For example, Nick Bolletieri, the former coach of tennis pros Andre Agassi and Monica Seles, is adding ice skating and ballet to the curriculum at his 22-year-old tennis academy.
After you have determined what type of program your child should attend, request a daily itinerary. It's a good idea to interview the camp's director about the amount and level of instruction. College coaches instruct for a minimum of six hours daily at all of Nike's 200 five-day camps, which are open to boarders and commuters. Beginning next summer, Alberto Salazar, the former champion distance runner, will run Nike-sponsored track-and-field camps.
But intensive training may be preferable to sports-camp ''factories,'' which feature high camper-to-coach ratios and overemphasize unstructured play. Local camps are usually the biggest offenders, since they tend to hire high school athletes at bargain-basement prices. Ideally, a camp should offer a minimum of one instructor for every 10 kids, says Don Shaw, whose girls' volleyball camp at Stanford University has one coach for every four girls and costs $495 for five days (415 723-0561). Typically, the more expensive the camp, the better the ratio. A four-week stay at Kutsher's Sports Academy in New York's Catskill Mountains, which features more than a dozen sports, runs about $2,850--but there is one coach for every three campers.
Then, look into the coaches' experience. Asking about the turnover rate of the camp's staff will give you an idea of how well the program is run and how much instructors actually want to be on the field coaching--rather than vacationing. If your child is interested in a camp that advertises pro athletes as coaches, such as the Offense-Defense football program at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. (800 243-4296), you'll want to make sure the coaches do more than visit in the morning for a pep talk. At Offense-Defense, even the 15 NFL players who run the program, along with 100 high school and college coaches and eight NFL coaches, must enjoy mentoring young players; otherwise, they aren't asked back, says camp director Rick Whittier. Jerome Bettis, the NFL's leading rusher in 1995, will join the staff this summer for the $315 five-day camp.
No doubt your kid is probably a long shot for the NFL. But who knows--maybe someday there will be a scholarship for white-water rafting.
Brad Wolverton

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