Children of various ages improved their football skills and learned life lessons in the 14th annual Legends All-Pro Football Camp that took place at Bogalusa High School on Thursday.

Camp director Bruce Plummer, who is a former NFL player and scout and current Bogalusa assistant football coach, said they were showing the participants some basic drills.

“Some of these kids play football here at the high school. Some of these kids have never played football,” Plummer said. “We’re just introducing them to different drills — how to stand, how to start, how to catch a ball. Once they’ve been doing it for a long time and if they do play on organized teams, they say, ‘hey, you know what? I’ve done that before. I can do that. That’s no problem. I know how to do it.’”

This year’s camp featured 120 participants, who went through stations where drills were set up in the morning. Some of the drills included, quarterbacks dropping back to pass, defensive back drills, tackling drills and offensive line drills. Kindergartners through 12th graders were eligible to participate.

The coaches all have experience in football whether it’s playing, coaching, scouting or all of the above throughout the different levels.

Plummer said one of the best parts of the camp is organizing it and talking to the campers about life skills at the end. He talked about several of the coaches that were on hand helping with the clinic.

“All of these guys out here are volunteering to do this,” Plummer said. “Some of these guys have played professional football. Some of these guys have been college coaches. I was a former scout myself. We’ve got Jerry Hardaway, who is a former scout. We have a guy named Swanie Jett, who played at Tennessee State. He’s the CEO of the healthcare system in Seminole County in Florida.”

“All of these guys took a day off work to come here and help. We’ve got Rodney Holman, who lives in Slidell, played in the NFL, coached in the NFL, he’s here. We’ve got the head coach from Boyet Junior High (in Slidell) here, Mark Ross — Ricardo Washington (former LSU player), we’ve got a lot of guys here that have experience in football.”

Holman, who spent 14 years in the NFL (1982-1995) at tight end. Holman was a Cincinnati Bengal for the first 11 seasons of his career before going to Detroit for the final three.

Over his career, Holman caught 365 passes for 4,771 yards (13.1 yards per catch) and 36 touchdowns over 212 games. He started 146 of those. He started at least 15 games seven times and played in all 16 contests 11 times.

The three-time pro bowler (1988-1990) was a member of the Bengals Super Bowl Team in the 1988-89 Season. The team lost that game to the San Francisco 49ers, 20-16.

Holman, who was helping with the offensive line drills, has been working the camp for about the last four-or-five years.

“I’ve been trying to come up here every year to help him out,” Holman said. “It’s a free camp for the kids in this area. We get kids from Independence and from all over to do that. It’s been well worth it from that standpoint to be helping most of the kids around here. Helping them develop their skills and that kind of stuff in football.”

After the campers went through the stations, the participants learned life skills, as coaches spoke to the participants.