All kinds of drills were practiced at Tiftarea's four-day football camp, including tackling form.

CHULA — Tiftarea Academy’s four-day youth football camp ended Thursday morning with the really fun stuff: watermelon, T-shirts and the slip and slide.

For the second straight year, the homemade slip and slide attracted the attention of most campers, who repeatedly slid, raced back up the hill and slid again.

A handful of campers were so eager, they failed to remove socks.

The four days of the Panther camp saw a little bit of everything.

Players were divided into two groups.

“My cubs,” said Payne, were ages 5-7. The “Panthers” were 8-13.

The aim of the camp was fundamentals, but working with the group was deeper than that.

Many of the youth are also Tiftarea students and Payne said he was looking towards the future with the lessons.

“We’re installing part of our offense in this camp,” he said.

Each day started out with what Payne called the “daily install,” where he talked about the objectives of each day, then did a walkthrough of each station to show the kids what they would be learning.

Campers went from station to station for exercises.

After the daily “building process,” the participants put everything together to run plays for games. The cubs played flag football. At the end of each day, Payne reviewed what they covered.

Activities had plenty of variety.

Toss sweep drills featured obstacles, with big exercise balls being rolled to simulate would-be tacklers. Quarterback exercises had both passing and handoffs covered. Kids even got a chance to work on field goal kicking.

“We’re trying to make things as fun as camp can be,” said Payne.

High school players and assistant coaches worked each station.

There were even more advantages than offense to the participants mostly being Tiftarea students.

The groups were smaller, meaning that the coaches had more one-on-one time with everyone and Payne pointed out that all his player assistants were already familiar with their charges.

Even on the first day of camp, “Hunter Hartsfield knew the name of every man at his station.”

The fun factor increased dramatically Thursday when watermelons were followed by a chance to get wet.

The slip and slide was a specialty of Tiftarea head football coach and camp organizer Tully Payne, who had encountered one of similar construction during a family vacation.

Payne’s used the most of Tiftarea’s resources. A hill behind the home football stands provided a slope. Two tarps provided the surface and they were greased with baby soap to provide speed once the sprinklers were turned on. Campers with enough momentum crashed into football pads at the foot of the slide.

Payne, however, declined to take his turn.

“It’s too cold,” he said.

That did not stop a few Tiftarea high school players from taking the plunge; Panthers starting quarterback Spence Massey went headfirst down the tarp several times.