Advertisement
“It’s a lot of fun and you get to meet new kids,” said Lindsay Felt, 12. “It’s better than staying at home.”
 |
Seven-year-old Taylor Donohue tries her hand at the climbing wall at the Mitchell Hall fieldhouse during the UWL Winter Youth Sports and Fitness Camp.
Erik Daily
Erik Daily |
The Logan Middle School seventh-grader is among the participants in the camp, which ends today.
The program promotes a physically active lifestyle, said Co-Director Ray Martinez, who also is a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse professor.
“We’re trying to get kids active so they can be healthy,” said Martinez, who teaches sports science and physical education at UW-L. “We also want to teach lifetime games they can continue to play.”
This is the fifth year the three-day camp has taken place at UW-L’s Mitchell Hall Fieldhouse. Kids can take part in traditional activities such as basketball and volleyball, as well as nontraditional events including pickleball and wall climbing.
They also have visits from the La Crosse County Sheriff’s Department, a La Crosse firefighter, a martial arts instructor and a nutritionist. It’s all designed, Martinez said, to promote a healthier lifestyle at a young age.
Scheduling it during the winter school break, he said, gets kids out and active during the colder weather.
It’s working. Martinez estimated they’ve seen 80 kids per day, all from the ages of 5 to 12 years-old. This year, he said, the kids had the option to rotate out, taking part of all three days, or just a day or two of their choice.
“We’re having a lot of returning kids and older kids,” he said.
Quentin Schlegel, 11, a Longfellow Middle School sixth-grader, appreciated the Fitness Camp.
“At home it’s really boring,” Schlegel said. “It’s fun. I liked basketball and rock climbing.”
Martinez said organizers send out brochures every year to area private and public schools, as well as home school lists. The response has been great, he said, and he’d like to see more kids get involved.
“The parents say their kids sleep well,” he said.
Ryan Stotts can be reached at (608) 791-8446 or ryan.stotts@lee.net.
