Varsity Football head coach and Dean of Students Shane Lopes organized and ran the first ever football passing clinic at Laguna Blanca School on Feb. 7.
Forty-eight athletes from Santa Barbara High, Cate, Orcutt Academy, Laguna and various other middle and high schools in the Santa Barbara area gathered at Chase Field for a day of instruction and competition by a star-studded, experienced lineup of coaches including Coach Lopes himself, former New England Patriot and Laguna Varsity Football offensive coordinator Leon Bidlow and former California State Player of the Year and All-American quarterback Keith Smith.
Players were split into groups of quarterbacks and receivers and given individual instruction and attention on their given positions.
After two hours of warm-ups, film and drills in the gym, the group strapped on their cleats and moved outside. They began running routes with defenders trailing and executing plays in a hurry-up offense scenario.
Finally, the coaches set up four fields for the last event of the day—a flag football tournament.
Four teams of upperclassmen and four teams of underclassmen and junior high schoolers competed against each other respectively in a round robin fashion to apply the skills and techniques they had learned throughout the day to a game-like situation.
The players and coaches of the various high school teams then gathered in the middle of the field to shake hands, give shout outs to one another and “bring it up” for a chant to end the day.
The event was so successful that another passing clinic is set for April 11th. It also seems to have started a trend as Laguna has began hosting lacrosse clinics at Chase Field as well. It has predominantly been current members of the boys lacrosse team in attendance, but their popularity is certainly growing.
As Coach Lopes said, these clinics help radiate what Laguna is all about to the community. They show that Laguna Blanca is a school that values and excels in academics as well as athletics. The purpose of clinics is not just to make our athletics teams and programs better, but to ameliorate the entire level of the play and participation of the schools in our community.