Eight City of Birmingham public high school students who are interns for BAP's new "Champions" TV show, went on a field trip to Channel 13, the Monday Morning Quarterback Club, and The Birmingham News.

These fine, aspiring high school students witnessed live and first-hand how Channel 13 brings the news to each household and how the "behind the scenes" activities is quite detailed but makes the newscast look so effortlessly.

The students were then excorted to the Monday Morning Quarterback Club where they were served a delicious lunch, recognized by Mr. Mark Tyson at the podium, and had the exciting chance to interview the MMQBC's guest speaker, Arkansas's head football coach, Houston Nutt.

Finally, to top of the day, the students walked down to The Birmingham News where they took an informative tour and Ron Ingram, Senior Sports Writer, gave them quality advice about making a career in media relations.

Thank you Alabama Power Company for making this possible!

The Birmingham Athletic Partnership held Media Day for the nine City of Birmingham public high schools' football teams August 3, 2005 at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in downtown Birmingham. The head coach from each school brought five student-athletes to be recognized and interviewed by the media.

We would like to thank the media who attended: Ron Ingram, Dennis Victory, and Ryan Young (the Birmingham News), Paul Beaudry (the Post-Herald), WVTM-TV Channel 13, FOX-6, ABC-33-40, WIAT-TV Channel 42, and Bright House Network and Tim Stout for taking the time to recognize these fine athletes and coaches.

Our motivational speaker was, Mr. Royd Williams. Royd was a standout athlete at Ensley high school and UAB and was drafted by the Oakland Raiders. He is now working to help the at risk youth of Birmingham find quality role models through Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Birmingham. Thanks, Royd for coming back home and making a positive impact on our youth in the community.

BAP also purchased State Championship Banners for each school and several of them were on display for everyone to see. BAP hopes the student-athletes take pride in knowing the historic athletic achievements of those teams and players before them.

BAP would like to thank Mr. Bill Legg and the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame for the wonderful opportunity to host this event at their facility-what an amazing place. Go by for a visit, you will not be disappointed.

RON INGRAM
News staff writer of the Birmingham News

Mountain Brook High School assistant football coach Chris Yeager stood in front of 299 campers Thursday morning and explained what they could expect at the annual high school lineman camp.

"This is not a camp about recruiting," Yeager said. "We're not going to run you in some agility drills, then divide you into a group of 30 or so prospects and put the rest of you in another group.

"We're here to teach you and you're here to learn."

Yeager and his camp staff of more than 10 area coaches pushed the big guys through a series of stations the next two days - teaching the offensive linemen various techniques of run and pass blocking and teaching the defensive linemen how to beat such tactics.

"If they can come away from this camp learning one new technique they can put in their arsenal, then the camp has been successful for them," Yeager said.

Summer football camps have been the rage for years. Most high school players have had to spend big bucks to attend college camps - where in some cases a student who has no real college potential is left standing by the wayside while the college staff focuses most of its attention on those who might help them somewhere down the road.

The Mountain Brook camp lived up to its billing, Hayes head coach Albin Barbour said. Barbour took over the Hayes football program last year - starting from scratch with a group of inexperienced youngsters when the city schools returned Hayes to high school status.

The Birmingham Athletic Partnership paid the fee for the Hayes participants - as well as the other players from Birmingham city schools who attended.

"This will help us tremendously," Barbour said. "I don't have a lot of coaches on my staff. Our kids, many of them, have had little training. So here they can get the benefit of some of the best high school line coaches around and can learn more about what it takes to be a good lineman."

Barbour, a running back by trade in his playing days, is optimistic about the Pacesetters' future in football. However, he is realistic. He knows that program will suffer growing pains.

"I wish we could have gotten started two years back," said the former Huffman assistant.

Hayes opened before the 2003 season but there had been no provisions made for high school football.

As a result, players with experience who had been zoned from Woodlawn and Huffman and Carver were allowed to return to their previous schools and participate.

"Those kids never came back," Barbour said.

So last season, with basically freshmen and sophomores, Barbour directed Hayes as it competed against more established programs in Class 5A.

"We now have weights so we can have an off-season program," he said. "We have also been able to take them through spring training. I thought we showed a lot of improvement in the spring."

One setback he hopes is temporary has been the loss of some of the more talented athletes in the school. "Several of the basketball players haven't come out," he said.

Yeager said the lineman camp is here to stay.

"The skill players have 7-on-7 camps now. We wanted this to be a camp run by high school coaches for high school linemen," he said. "We never expected this big turnout. But it's great, just great."

Linemen and coaches from as far away as Athens and Enterprise attended. Most, however, were from local schools.

E-mail: ringram@bhamnews.com