Concord football finally free to open up, Holding 7-on-7 high school tournament, Big Man camp this weekend
Jul. 15—ATHENS — Dave Walker had been head football coach at Concord University only a short time before it became virtually impossible for his program to fully interact with area high school coaches and players the way he originally intended.
Hopefully, this weekend marks the biggest turning point in that area since Walker got here.
More than a dozen high school football programs will be on the Concord campus on Saturday participating in the Mountain Lions' 7-on-7 competition at Callaghan Stadium.
The outreach and interaction won't be limited to the skill kids. In addition to the fast-moving 7-on-7 format, Concord's football program will concurrently put on a Big Man camp to evaluate and teach high school linemen the techniques and skills that are required at the college level.
"We're having something for the big guys as well, so while the skill guys are doing 7-on-7 we'll have a Big Man camp going on the same time. A lot of guys will be bringing their lineman along with their 7-on-7 teams," Walker said.
It's all basically happening a year later than Walker would have liked, but he had no control over the timing. During the chaos and uncertainty of the COVID-19 outbreak, nobody did.
"We really weren't able to bring anybody on campus or do anything. It was just the situation we were all in," said Walker, whose Mountain Lions got in one contest in the Mountain East Conference's 2021 spring season — a 52-14 victory at West Virginia Wesleyan — before COVID tracing ended up shutting down the rest of Concord's season.
"I think right now we've got 13 teams, if everybody shows up," Walker said. "Unfortunately we had a conflict with a couple of other tournaments going on at the same time that kept some of the Charleston schools from coming. But we're excited ... we've got the local schools coming. We're excited just to get out and watch the guys run around and hopefully they'll get something out of it and it'll be a good experience for them."
While Walker didn't have the list of all participating area programs in hand, he confirmed he was certain Bluefield, Princeton, PikeView and Tazewell planned to be on hand.
"I don't have my list in front of me. But I think we've got all the local guys," Walker said.
There will be a coaches meeting at 8 a.m. with the expectation of getting everything under way by 9 a.m.
"Right now we intend to do a round-robin and then do brackets and have a double-elimination tournament," Walker said. "That's if we have have all the teams we're expecting. If something else happens we'll change the format. We want everybody to get in as many games as they can."
Walker said the tournament, which he expects to wrap up around 4 p.m. Saturday, will be open to spectators.
Concord University football players will report to campus on August 6 and practice will begin on August 9.
Presently, there is no indication that the Mountain East Conference will impose any unusual restrictions on how the upcoming season will be conducted.
"Right now we think we're going to be as close to normal as possible. We anticipate having fans at the games and carrying on as expected," Walker said. "As far as us ... we've still been recruiting and trying to finalize everything. We're getting excited for the season.
