Children hit the gridiron on Thursday to learn and compete in the 2019 Legends All-Pro Football Camp that was held at Bogalusa High School on a sunny day with some breeze.
This was the camp’s 17th year.
“Good day. It’s a bigger turnout,” said camp director and Bogalusa High School assistant football coach Bruce Plummer. “As long as the kids continue to come, I’ll keep doing the camp. So we have about 85 kids today (60 last year), which is a big improvement from last year. I told all of them, all these kids, all these coaches took a day off work just to come out here and help these kids here in Washington Parish and in Bogalusa and I’m really proud with the turnout that we have.”
Plummer graduated from Bogalusa in 1983 and is a former NFL player and former scout.
This year’s featured coach was Terrence Magee.
Magee was the quarterback for Franklinton when the Demons captured the 2010 Class 4A state title.
Following high school, Magee, who graduated from Franklinton in 2011, went to LSU and played running back for the Tigers. For his career, Magee ran for 1,330 yards and 12 touchdowns. He also caught 12 passes for 271 yards.
Magee has three years of NFL experience from 2015-2017. He has had limited playing time with a season each being with the Baltimore Ravens, Seattle Seahawks and Atlanta Falcons.
This past season, Magee played for the Memphis Express of the American Alliance of Football. Magee ran for 134 yards on 40 carries and two touchdowns.
Magee talked about his goals on Thursday.
“Just come out here and support and help and give back to these kids, just to show them you can go out here and do something and you can take this sport and do a lot of things with it,” Magee said. “It teaches you about life. It’s not just about football. It’s teaching them about hard work, instilling values in them and just getting to meet people from the area that they can look up to as somebody that you can touch and that you can feel and that you can talk to and ask questions. It’s not just somebody that you see on the screen all of the time.”
Magee said he was really enjoying himself.
“It reminds a lot of myself when I was a kid going to camps, looking at people. Some of these kids, they look like they don’t want to be out here right now, but it’s something that’ll turn out good for them. It’ll be something they can look back at and see that it made an impact later on in life,” Magee said.
Campers went through drills at stations that taught them about the different positions on the gridiron.
Before the camp concluded, the coaches held a life lessons session.
The clinic had about 17 coaches.