Alex Martin, NCSA Student Athlete: Still Camping
August 27th, 2008 - by I attended an Elite Soccer Camp at the University California Santa Barbara in California and had an awesome experience. I met people from all over the United States and a couple from around the world who came to this camp. This was the best camp that I’ve 
attended. The coaches and former players that helped out were very good. They had a lot of coaching tips, things to say about everyone’s performance, the training was intense and hard. If you didn’t come to play and work hard then you were in for a rude awaking because they treated us just like their own soccer players at Santa Barbara. There were two training groups, A and B. Group A was in the first training session so we had to wake up early at 7:00. We got a quick breakfast and then headed to the soccer fields. We trained for over 2 hours, then went back to the dorm and ate lunch. Afterwards we started the second training session of more drills and skills. They gave us a break before dinner at 6:00 and then back we headed to the soccer fields for 11 v. 11 games. There were 8 teams; Ireland, Germany, Japan, Italy, USA, Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. I was on Ireland and we went 2-2-1. Overall our team held up fairly well. The finals were between Italy and Germany. That game was very exciting because there were 7 goals and Italy won 4-3.
We stayed in 6 person suites. I meet two guys who became my friends, Scott and Chris. We were all in group A so we stayed together and hung out. There was a game room where everyone chilled and that’s when I met a guy from Denver. He plays on Storm North U16 with some of my high school buddies. We had the same flight home and my parents got to meet him. It was a great week, but I was glad to back in Colorado and ready to start high school soccer.
When I got back I was able to participate in a coaching training video for NSCAA with 5 of my high school soccer friends. They gave us the jerseys, shorts and socks we wore in the videos for helping. It was fun seeing how they made training videos, lots of standing around, going through drills and motions with the coaches before they filmed anything. They picked a few us to do “Tips of the Week” training drills with the coaches and these will be on Fox TV this fall. Can’t wait to see myself on TV!
We have a new men’s soccer coach, Mike Garnhart at my high school in Longmont. He did a conditioning camp and then try-outs before school started on the 18th. I was so glad I kept running and practicing all summer and attended 2 soccer camps, it really made the difference in my playing and I was selected to be on the Varsity team. We had our first soccer scrimmage yesterday against a 5A high school out of our division and another high school we play every season. We tied the 5A team 1-1 and I got a goal! The next school we tied 2-2 and this is the first time they haven’t beaten us. I think this is going to be a great season and can hardly wait for the season to start.
Signing off for now,
Alex Martin in Colorado
