CAMERON WORRELL

The former Fresno State defensive back is still looking for an NFL home this season, but is hard at work getting his third annual Passing Down Skills Camp ready July 11 and 12 at Buchanan High School. VSP Senior Writer George Takata sat down with Worrell to talk about the camp.

GEORGE TAKATA: This is third year of the Passing Down Camp. It seems to get bigger every year.
CAMERON WORRELL: It is. We’ve got scout.com on board this year. They came out to the camp last year and really liked what they saw. We’ve focused on the valley and brought the spotlight to some valley kids that might not otherwise be seen and scout.com is going to create profiles for them. All my former Fresno State teammates who have or are still playing in the NFL come out and it’s just a great experience for kids around here to be a part of something like that, to be around NFL guys for a weekend.

GT: Talk more about some of the NFL guys who are expected to be at the camp.
CW: Ricky Manning (Edison HS, UCLA, NFL cornerback) will be out there. Adam Jennings (Lions), James Sanders (Patriots), Richard Marshall (Panthers) are all going to come out. Paul Pinegar (Fresno State) will work with the quarterbacks. I think Bernard Berrian (Vikings) is going to be back. He was there year one. He signed a big fat contract so he was busy last year spending money, but I think he’s going to be back this year and I think Bear Pascoe (49ers) will be out there too. We always have a strong NFL contingency. Guys like to come back and give back to the Fresno area where we played our college ball and had great experiences winning for the Bulldogs.

GT: Is it rare for kids that age to have so many NFL guys, 5 to 10 guys helping kids out at a camp?
CW: I’ve never been around anything like this. It’s really rare to have that many NFL guys who have played in one spot and come back and really do hands-on instruction, teach kids basic fundamentals and techniques and we all really try to get these kids to become better football players. I read a quote from a kid who said his most favorite part of the camp was watching two of the NFL guys chasing each other with water guns. It shows we’re regular people, down to earth. We’re not how some of the guys are portrayed in the media. We care about football. We care about showing kids the right way to do things and I think that’s really special for them.

GT: How much is the camp and what are the age groups?
CW: It’s high school kids grades 9-12 in the fall. It’s $125 dollars for two days. 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days at Buchanan High School. The first half of the first day is a combine, run 40’s and do the shuttles and agility drills, the ‘L’ test and the vertical and broad jump. The second half of the first day is competitive one-on-ones, receivers against defensive backs, linebackers against tight ends and running backs. We’ll have offensive and defensive linemen there this year too. The second day is full pads. It’s great to see the community start to support this on a larger basis and hopefully we just continue to grow and add something positive to the valley.

GT: Talk about how scout.com could help these kids get recognized.
CW: Coming out of Chowchilla, had I had the opportunity to be seen by scout.com which I never was, I might have had one offer out of high school. Instead, I had none. So hopefully, kids from smaller schools and even the big schools who come out and otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to be seen get put on the map. It betters their careers and gives them a better chance to be seen by some universities.

GT: It sounds like having the NFL guys there is an added bonus.
CW: The basis of the camp is always to get great individual instruction from NFL players. That’s going to be there day one and day two and that will never change. We hope to expand every year. We hope more kids come in and that it becomes a recruiting tool for everybody in the valley where they won’t have to go to L.A. or San Francisco to get that exposure. They also get to compete against the best kids in the valley one-on-one with pads and without pads and kind of see who the best player around is.

THIS AND THAT: For more camp information, log on to www.passingdown.com.

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