Following the Center Roughrider 2021 football season, I approached the athletic director and presented a vision for developing student leadership in the program. After several weeks of processing and bringing other coaches into the conversation and development, a plan was agreed upon. On January 4, 2022, the leadership development plan was announced to the boy’s athletic program with the culmination and goal of attaining an invitation to a leadership camp experience known as Camp Extreme Blessing. The progression toward the camp was through a four tier process. Each tier lasted 6 weeks and all the objectives of each tier had to be met to advance to the following tier. Each tier was more challenging than the previous one. Some of the objectives were: assignments turned in on time, attendance, dressing for success once a week, service projects, personal buy in of the Five Pillars of Purple Up, language, notes of appreciation to coaches, teachers, support staff and administration. At the end of the fourth tier, there were 20 young men who had successfully completed all the objectives. As more details were shared with these young men, a few had family conflicts with the dates of Camp Extreme Blessing and four declined the invitation to attend camp because of the no electronics policy. There were 11 athletes and 3 coaches who accepted and attended Camp Extreme Blessing at the end of June 2022. More information on Camp Extreme Blessing will follow in a future post. Stay tuned!