Hundreds of area athletes received a few pointers from a Super Bowl champion while participating in last Saturday’s 10th annual Dannel Ellerbe FUNdamentals Camp.
Ellerbe, a former Richmond Senior High School athlete and two-time Super Bowl champion with 2013 Baltimore Ravens and the 2018 Philadelphia Eagles, returned to his alma mater for a free camp catering to athletes of all ages and skill levels.
“Hard work pays off. If you keep working hard, then you make it somewhere,” said Richmond Senior High School receiver Ahjujuan Ewing, while repeating the camp’s mantra and crediting instructors for their tips regarding route-running and creating space against a defender. “… I really need to work on my routing running and catching – learn the plays and mentally and physically get right for the season.”
Following an 8 a.m. free registration, campers paired off in their respective age groups and got to work. With a live D.J. providing music for the event, the groups shifted from station to station doing drills focusing on movements universally applicable regardless of what position he or she lines up while on the gridiron.
“I feel great. Everything went smooth, and we ended on time for the first time in 10 years. I just had fun with the kids,” Ellerbe said.
Last Saturday marked the sophom*ore return for the FUNdamentals Camp. The camp took a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic but returned last year with hundreds of kids coming to the Richmond Senior High School practice fields to mark the occasion. While some event planners aim to make each event bigger than the previous event, Shervella Ellerbe – the wife of Dannell Ellerbe and co-organizer of the camp – said what kept the FUNdamentals Camp going for so many years, as well as made it easier to restart after COVID, was its consistency in incremental growth in size and scope year after year.
“It’s really important. We’re both natives from the county. To be able to come back and (bring) that support in, it’s really important. We want to model that the only way to continue to build our community, the growth that we want to see, is to be the growth that we want to see. We like to lead by example in that way,” Shervella Ellerbe said.
Despite a nearly decade-long NFL career and playing college football in the vaunted Southeast Conference, Ellerbe only participated in one football camp as a youth. While summer football camps are a tradition in some parts of the country, until the FUNdamentals Camp, Richmond County was not one of those parts. Ellerbe said his primary motivation for creating the free camp was to give Richmond County kids an annual experience he only had the opportunity to have once.
“I went to one football camp growing up. It was Bo Campbell, and it was in South Carolina. It was a little camp he put together for a couple of kids … That was the only camp I went to growing up,” Ellerbe said. “Being here in a football county, a place known for football, and not having that around for kids ongoing and consistently as it should be, I felt like it was only right for me to do it. The way stuff has been going around, and how kids are turning to the streets and stuff like that, I wanted to be able to come back and show them they can be whatever they want to be. It doesn’t have to be football.”
Although the FUNdamentals Camp is closely tied to the Ellerbe Family, both Dannell and Shervella Ellerbe credited its success to being a community effort. Sponsors and donations allowed each camper to receive a free T-shirt, the station coaches all volunteered their time and the Richmond Senior High School Beta Club kept campers hydrated in the sweltering summer heat.
“It’s really beautiful. Everybody comes out. The Beta Club came out, and (through volunteerism) they are able to gain the merits or points they need to go to nationals and place. For everybody to pour in, it was really beautiful,” Shervella Ellerbe said. “It gives you the insight that we all are trying to have the same impact, we just do it in various ways … I had four people come up and say ‘Hey, I just retired. I want to make sure y’all know I’m available. What can I do?’ If we can keep that tempo for everything, how much can we accomplish? It gives me hope. It’s beautiful to see.”
