Over the summer, LFA became more than just an academic campus. Bringing together kids and coaches from different schools and backgrounds, the LFA sports camps introduced athletes to all kinds of sports and fostered an environment for their friendships to extend beyond the fields.
The sports camps combined external programs like Nike basketball and No Limits with internal camps like the Flat soccer camp and the hockey camp. Hundreds of students and faculty simultaneously stayed on campus, which made the biggest challenge organizing plans for everyone. Coaches were responsible for scheduling practice courts to ensure that external and internal camps did not clash with each other in terms of both space and time. It was complicated to make everything work out all at once, especially with an unexpected storm.
The school was hit by a complete blackout during the camp. The blackout was caused by a severe storm that affected almost the entire North Shore. For more than 48 hours, everyone on campus suffered a power outage, with most of their training plans interrupted. Most notably, the hockey camp had to travel off campus due to a melted ice rink.
Coaches and teachers worked to keep everyone safe and maintain some sense of normalcy. As the power came back, everyone was relieved and at least gained a new experience. “The students learned from a human-being perspective from this incident, with a lot of them in leadership positions understanding how to cope with such emergencies,” Assistant Athletic Director and Assistant Director of Auxiliary Programs Andrew Amft-Reyes said.
Despite the blackout, the daily interactions of athletes were a highlight of the event. Team-building happened around campus, and many of the students were able to navigate situations through communication. Although different sports were enrolled in the camps, most of them were ultimately crossing paths with each other. At some points, the hockey players were doing conditioning while the other side of the space was occupied by simultaneous practices. Students who never met with one another had a safe space to hang out with each other, spending some time together between having lunch or a quick chat. “I was glad to see everyone working on the same page and hearing all the conversations. Campers frequently met with one another, which made the camp a healthy combination of both sports practice and social interactions,” Amft-Reyes said.
The residential format continued to make these interactions even more significant. Living together for five days in the dorms, athletes had opportunities to break the ice between themselves and others, creating friendships outside of practice hours. Many of them still keep in touch with one another. “I was able to talk to people who were in college and learn about other communities. The friendship-building processes were amazing,” Zoe Watkins ‘28, who worked as a counsellor at the Doug Bruno basketball camp, shared.
The environment also enabled the coaches to see students grow and develop as people. With many students collaborating and taking up all kinds of responsibilities, the importance of unity was emphasized. All campers were bonded together as a community sharing the same campus and experiences.
In that sense, the summer sports camps were not just separate sports collected together. They built the bridge that connected people who otherwise would not have known each other, challenges that otherwise would be hard to overcome and experiences that otherwise would not have been so memorable. Even when the lights were down, the community remained connected.