As the weather starts to get warmer, summer seems to be coming up quickly. While most students will return home for the break, the UW-Whitewater campus is still full of fun and entertaining events for people that are willing to learn new activities or improve their craft. From athletic camps to music events, the campus is full of activities for folks to do. 

There are camps for any sport or musical event you can think of. For sports, the camps include anything from football, wrestling, and basketball to just about any other sport that’s on the Whitewater campus. For music, there are plenty of different camps to attend that cover just about every musical category, from band to orchestra and voice. 

UW-Whitewater’s football camps have always been some of the strongest in the country. Led by Head Coach Kevin Bullis, the camps range in variety in skill level while also diving into the youth groups. 

“Even before the pandemic, overnight camps really disappeared, other than us,” Bullis said of the youth camps taking place June 19-21. “So, we kind of had a uniqueness on the market that allowed us to have really good numbers. We pride ourselves on marketing those camps. They’re based on the developmental skills for the fundamentals of players. We’ve had as high as 300 campers for that event, so we hope we can get back up to those numbers again.” 

A few days after, the perimeter and lineman camps will be taking place at Perkins Stadium. These camps preach the basics of fundamentals to get players’ craft down to a science, to help with the little things a bit more. Along with those, Whitewater also hosts passing jamborees and seven-on-seven drills with high schools from around the area. The seven-on-seven drills are officiated by some of the players on the team, which also helps with some of the development and questions the high schoolers have while also helping out with the youth camps. 

“Primarily, our youth camp is where we really utilize our players a lot to coach to serve in position roles for those camps,” Bullis said. “Even the other camps, like the perimeter and the lineman’s camp will have some of our players working those camps.” 

Along with the football camps, the tennis camps also get a large attendance throughout the summer. The tennis camps are split into junior, college prep, and adult camps. Frank Barnes, the tennis coach and the interim camp director for the campus camps, raved about the tennis camps. 

“The camps run all summer long because the junior camps are a week-long each, and there are five junior camps altogether,” Barnes said. “We incorporate some social aspects into the camps, which include some tennis aspects as well. For the adult camps, a lot of them come back year after year, so it’s kind of like an annual retreat for a lot of them.” 

An important aspect of the college prep camp is giving the students the differences between the high school ranks and collegiate ranks while giving the students some advice on their skills and the recruiting process. 

“We take them through some typical college drills and break them off into teams, and we put them against each other in a typical college format,” Barnes said. “We have a couple of seminars for them during the week, telling them how to get recruited and the whole recruiting process. We videotape them, so they can use that in the recruiting process and give them matchup analysis.” 

The camp season for the music camps is from the third week in June to the end of July. Every camp has practiced throughout the week before a performance to cap off the camps as a whole. Glenn Hayes, the Director of Bands at UW-Whitewater, plays a major role in all of the camps from this time. 

“We run a couple of camps at the same time,” Hayes said. “Students come from all over, and they have lessons and rehearsals, with every camp having a performance at the end of the week. We hire a lot of our music students, along with our alumni, to work at these camps.” 

With summer fast approaching, be sure to look out for any camps on the UW-Whitewater campus that interest you. There seems to be something for everyone to take part in!