Contact: Jenni Brockman
Telephone: 804-443-3357
Fax: 804-443-6781
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SMS Brings Football Players, Other Visitors
To Area This Summer
Tappahannock (August 28, 2000) - This August marked the second year that Paul VI High School traveled from Fairfax to hold its pre-season football training camp at St. Margaret's School. The team was among six residential groups, including a girls' soccer camp and a fiction writers' workshop, that brought summer visitors to the Water Lane campus and the Tappahannock area.
Paul VI Football Team Pre-Season Camp at SMS - Paul VI junior varsity player Frank Keel, son of Head Coach Wade Keel, practices agility drills at Gilchrist Field. With temperatures hovering around the 100-degree mark, t-shirts were optional for the young athletes.
No matter how the X's and O's are drawn, it would seem that holding a football camp for teenage boys at an all-girls' high school would distract the players.
However, hold the camp in the summer when the students are on vacation and "It's a perfect situation," said Paul VI Varsity Football Coach Wade Keel. "The facilities are wonderful. It is an advantage for our kids to be able come to St. Margaret's, move away from home, and concentrate exclusively on football for a week."
"We like to think that our facilities had something to do with their [Paul VI's] winning record last year," said SMS Business Manager Nancy Smith. "We were pulling for Paul VI all season. Their hard work last summer here at St. Margaret's really paid off." "The new SMS dining facility, pool, gym, and Gilchrist Field provide an idyllic setting for us," Assistant Coach Walt Keel added. St. Margaret's has become our home away from home - and we don't want to break up the tradition."
The team enjoyed their stay so much, from the training table meals to the air-conditioned dormitories, that they presented Smith and St. Margaret's with an elaborately framed team photograph. Like several of the other summer groups that were impressed with the campus, river and town, they already are making plans to return next year.
The Paul VI football team consists of approximately 80 varsity and junior varsity athletes, trainers and coaches. Paul VI (10-2-1) won the 1999 Washington Catholic Athletic Conference championship and finished the 1999 regular season ranked seventh among Metro DC-area teams.
The 2000 team is preparing for the upcoming season in businesslike fashion. "You have to in the District - the area is too competitive to do otherwise," said Coach Wade Keel. Judging by the hard work they put into football camp, don't be surprised if Paul VI repeats as WCAC champs this fall!
