Thunder, youths mix it up

It was Tuesday morning, a day when the temperature was supposed to reach 85.

But 55 youths were inside the climate-controlled Covelli Centre.

Kids?

Inside?

Hot summer day?

But they loved it.

The Mahoning Valley Thunder’s two-day youth football camp attracted 55 campers each day.

One of the oldest was Tyler McNally of Struthers, whose mother, Tracy, was watching and, occasionally, snapping pictures.

“I think it’s great to have these camps,” Tracy said of the Thunder-sponsored event that used the af2 team’s players and coaches as instructors.

“It gives them a great chance to be around pros,” Tracy McNally said. Looking over the campers, she added, “I’m thankful because it gives these kids something to do.”

For her son, football was a vehicle toward progress.

“Football has made him a better student,” she said. “He struggled in school and had a lack of confidence that made it hard to see himself doing anything else.

“But football gave him a chance. It helped push him a little more than if not participating in sports.”

Tyler first found football as a fifth-grader in the 115-pound division of the Struthers Little Wildcats program. He also played the following year at 130, before joining the school district’s middle school squads.

The Thunder camp was Tyler’s first — and last, because of age restrictions.

But, he’ll be trying out for the Struthers High freshman team starting later this summer.

Among other parents scattered in seats around the Covelli Centre were Rusty Preston and John Harris, both of Boardman.

Preston is a former Boardman High quarterback who later played at Findlay College and then for the Youngstown Hardhats.

Preston, who just turned 56, yet still has a head of natural blonde locks, was waiting for his son, 9-year-old Ryan.

“I’m trying to get him involved a little more than the flag aspect of it,” Rusty said of Ryan’s indoctrination.

Ryan recently finished a spring season in the Youngstown Youth Flag Football Association, a 5-on-5 league that plays its games in front of Boardman High School on Glenwood Avenue.

“Flag is very good and my son loves it, but as he gets older, he has to get acclimated to the broader scope of the game,” Preston said. “The spread offense is what the kids have to be exposed to and this camp is good for getting the fundamentals.”

Rusty Preston said it was the first camp for Ryan, who will be a third-grader at Robinwood Elementary. Rusty has coached his son in the Elliott Giles-directed YYFFA for three seasons.

“It’s sponsored through the NFL,” Preston said of the flag league.

During the Thunder’s game against the visiting Kentucky Horsemen, the YYFFA gave a halftime demonstration on Covelli’s Cortland Banks Field.

Rusty plans to attend his fourth af2 game on Saturday when Mahoning Valley plays the Wilkes-Barre Pioneers. As a follow-up to today’s Thunder-sponsored StormChaster cheerleading clinic at the Covelli Centre, Rusty expects his daughter, Megan, 13, to take part in a dance routine at halftime.

Preston was a Hardhat for seven summers until injuring a knee. Rusty works for the Boardman Township road department.

John Harris’ son, Langston, was participating in the Thunder clinic just a few days after attending a week-long soccer camp at the Infante Wellness Center in Niles.

“I heard about the [football] camp through Rusty,” John Harris said of Preston. The men are friends through their sons, both players in the YYFFA and Boardman Community Baseball League.

“Langston is at that stage of his life when he’s playing a lot of sports. We want to give him as many opportunities as we can,” Harris said of himself and his wife, Yulanda. “We’re not going to push him, but he really enjoys football.”

Harris, a sports columnist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, gave the football camp a good review.

“I saw some good drills and I know the kids were tickled being with the players. I could tell they were really attentive. I think the kids were excited to be on the Centre’s turf.”

Ryan Preston and Langston Harris played on the same Wells Fargo baseball team that just ended its season with a 15-1 record, but the boys played on different teams in the YYFFA.

Harris, 8, is also going into the third grade at Robinwood Elementary.

Thunder emergency kicker Nathan Palkovic’s car was totaled two days before the June 19 game.

Palkovic also totaled 439 yards on eight kickoffs and converted 5 of 6 extra-point attempts.

Wolves’ DB/LB Martel Vanzant is the first deaf player in the af2 and only the third to play professional football. Vanzant was the cover story on CBSsportsline.com during NCAA March Madness this year and was the subject of an in-depth feature by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Stan Grossfield in The Boston Globe on June 2.

Wolves equipment manager Darren Damewood is also the equipment manager for the NBC show “Friday Night Lights” and served as the student manager for the University of Texas when the Longhorns won the national championship with Vince Young at QB.

XJohn Bassetti covers the Thunder for The Vindicator. Write him at bassetti@vindy.com