Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Farmington Athlete Excels At USA Football Camp In Ohio
FAMILY ENJOYS FOOTBALL CAMP IN OHIO
FARMINGTON — Nykolaus Comer, an incoming Farmington seventhgrader, dreams of playing professional football and took a big step towards realizing his dream by making the USA 14 and under team.
Nykolaus, who checks in at 5- feet- 6, 230 pounds, received valuable hands-on training during a week-long USA Football training camp at Canton, Ohio, June 29 – July 4.
His mother Amanda Comer has devoted herself to insuring Nykolaus is in position to lay hold of opportunities to continue to develop as a football player self-described as a “crazy football mom.” Amanda took Nykolaus to a USA Football regional development camp held at Oklahoma City in April which resulted in an invitation to play for the national team and in June the family drove 15 hours to Canton, Ohio, in a vehicle packed with gear to keep Nykolaus comfortable in a Walsh University dorm room for one week.
Nykolaus’ first impression was “everybody is very big.”
Coming up through the Farmington Peewee football program, he is accustomed to being the biggest lineman on the field but on a national level Nykolaus is just one of the players.
“Nyk is used to being the biggest kid on the line. A couple of the boys were smaller but they definitely had some boys bigger than him,” Amanda Comer said. “That tells me they were pulling from a much-larger demographic.”
In the midst of this environment Nykolaus earned a starting position at guard, which became a key for him to experience a new fundamental — pulling.
“That was new for him, something he hadn’t done before,” Amanda Comer said. “Most of what they were doing was very core, very basic football structure.”
The kicker was only Nykolaus and the other starting guard, a young man named Thomas from Georgia, who were allowed to execute a pull during the game.
“They didn’t let the second string pull,” Nykolaus said.
Amanda Comer was impressed with how the camp was designed for player development with an intentional level playing field. USA Football issued a playbook and every team from all age levels operated from identical offensive sets.
Nykolaus observed, “All the teams there had the same basic playbook but the older teams ran more plays.”
“Their statement was they wanted the outcome of the game to be based on player’s abilities to execute those plays, not on coaches’ abilities to come up with plays,” Amanda Comer said.
Campers spent most of the week learning position skills. Nykolaus was among a group of 14 offensive linemen working with a single coach, who evaluated each player and rated them. Teams were decided by day two but Nykolaus said they didn’t do team plays until Thursday.
Nykolaus never got bored in the midst of five hours of practice each day, split into a three hour morning workout and a two hour afternoon practice concluding with a team meeting or strategy session.
“One of the things I thought was best from a parental stand- point was they worked their rears off,” Amanda Comer said. “Despite all that hard work they made it really fun. Every time he saw me, Nykolaus would tell me how much fun he was having.”
“The coaches were good-natured, they laughed. Nobody ever got in their face and yelled being condescending like some coaches can be. Those guys were exceptional,” Amanda Comer said.
Amanda also appreciates the camp staff being as focused on building good character among individual athletes as they were on developing good football players. Bad attitudes were not welcomed nor tolerated.
“There was a fight in the game room and they kicked both players out of camp,” Nykolaus said.
On Saturday campers got to play a game and in a typical training camp scenario defense was ahead of the offense.
“We were halfway through the second quarter before we scored. They were very evenly- matched teams,” Nykolaus said.
Amanda agreed, “They equalized all teams as best they could.”
Nykolaus’ team led 12-6 at halftime and won 25-13 in what he described as a hardfought two-touchdown win with a telecast on ESPN3, something the players didn’t know about ahead of time and only found out when a lengthy commercial break caused them to start asking what’s going on. Officials working the game informed them of the telecast.
Going into the camp Nykolaus had a specific goal he wanted to accomplish, “To make first string, which I did.” Coming out of the camp he’s looking toward his future with USA Football, once having made the team is now privileged to participate every year throughout junior high and high school until he graduates. The only requirement is that he attend camp each year, something he is eager to do.
“I want to become a better football player and at least one year make the International team.”