Navarre coming together as a team (with VIDEO, PHOTOS)

By TRAVIS DOWNEY

travisd@nwfdailynews.com

NAVARRE - At first, Navarre coach Chad Lashley readily admits he was skeptical.

The thought of taking a bus full of high school football players for a three-and-a-half day camp at Adventure Island in Milton sounded like more trouble than it was worth.

"I thought, ‘You can't put pads on, what will we get done?'" Lashley recalled. "Well, you can get a lot done."

Over the course of the camp, Lashley and his staff not only ironed out the wrinkles in the Raiders' special teams, but also implemented the team's full offensive and defensive schemes.

More importantly, the time spent away from friends and family helped forge a closer team.

"It's not so much special teams, offense and defense," senior quarterback Andrew Velazquez said. "We have to work together to make each other better.

"It all came together at camp, it really did."

In what has become an annual rite of summer for the Navarre football program, Lashley and the Raiders' coaching staff hauled 50 members of this year's team to Milton for a camp that carried a distinct "Junction Boys" theme.

"I wish I could take credit for coming up with it," Lashley said with a laugh.

The idea was born out of the mind of former Navarre coach Larry Olson, who first implemented the camp while at Crestview.

Players are divided and put into different cabins, where they are woken up each morning at 5 a.m. for the first of four practices.

Practices are followed by short swims in a nearby creek to help keep players cool.

Meals are taken as a team and followed by position meetings.

There are no luxuries, just football - every day, all day.

"You spend four days out there away from all the distractions - girlfriends, T.V., music, radio - everything," senior Adam Hamilton said. "You have to focus squarely on football. You can't not because you have to."

Besides using the time to grasp a better understanding of their game plan and improve their conditioning with bear crawls on the beach, Lashley said the camp also tests a team's commitment at every level.

"A lot of times at those camps, you start getting into the mental toughness part of it," Lashley said. "You're tired, coach kept you up until 10:30 and he gets you up at 5:30, we've got them running around in the dark. At some point, you expect them to fold."

Instead, Lashley said he saw a team come together and display a resilience that will serve them well on Friday nights.

"When we felt they were at their breaking point, they always snapped back."

PHOTOS: Click here to view photos from practice.