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Photos courtesy of Knight Eady.
Children participate in the Rally Sports Camp in July 2023.
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Photos courtesy of Knight Eady.
Children participate in the Rally Sports Camp in July 2023.
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Photos courtesy of Knight Eady.
Children participate in the Rally Sports Camp in July 2023.
Cahaba Heights Park will host the 2024 Rally Sports Camp this summer.
Offered to children ages 5 to 11, Rally Sports Camps are designed to mimic the energy and relaxed atmosphere of recess or physical education classes. During the weeklong camp, kids play six sports such as wiffle ball, volleyball, soccer, flag football and basketball. The camp allows children to explore and practice sports to which they may never have been exposed in an environment where they are not being evaluated on performance.
“The concept of Rally Sports Camps camp is we want sports to be fun, and we want to create them in a way that, sure it can be competitive, but it doesn't have to be life-altering,” said Caleb Schmidt, vice president of sponsorships for Knight Eady, a Birmingham-based sports management and marketing company that started the camps in 2020 to fill a void in children’s sports created during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
“These are kids, and the thing we forget sometimes is that sports are supposed to be fun, but we end up making them more fun for the parents than we do for the kids,” Schmidt said. “There’s nothing wrong with competition, but it’s about balancing it in a healthy way.”
With their own business slowed due to the pandemic, the Knight Eady leadership realized they had the experience to address the need for children’s programming during the pandemic, Schmidt said.
“Knight Eady looked at that and said, ‘We're a professional sports event management company. Surely we can figure out a way to run a fun sports camp,’” Schmidt said.
Knight Eady operated the first Rally Sports Camp in 2020, while working with several nonprofit organizations to offer scholarships to kids from underserved communities. During that first week of camp, Schmidt had an idea to help broaden the horizons of young people throughout greater Birmingham to the vast career opportunities in sports.
“I had this vision of creating a brand new sports nonprofit that was built around the idea of creating experiences, preparing kids and ultimately creating a more equitable playing field for them with regards to careers in sports,” Schmidt said.
“A lot of kids from underserved communities grow up thinking that if they want to be impactful and want to have a career in sports, they have to be an athlete,” he said. “I wanted to show them the path toward finding well-being for themselves, providing for their families and being present in the lives of their communities, and that there are opportunities in sports to do that beyond just being an athlete.”
Schmidt launched the Zero Zero Foundation in the fall of 2020 and brought the Rally Sports Camp under its umbrella. Since then, the organization has expanded its mission, including making sports accessible to kids from all socioeconomic backgrounds and providing a sense of excitement and adventure that Schmidt said has been lost to the over-structuring of youth sports. The camps allow kids to learn about teamwork, interpersonal skills and cooperation, with an emphasis on simply having fun.
“We think that, unfortunately, sports have become way too privatized and have become way too professional,” Schmidt said. “At an earlier and earlier age, parents are committing them [kids] to one sport, and they’re playing that sport year-round, and by the time they're in sixth grade, many of them are totally burned out because all they’ve ever done is play that one sport.”
According to Schmidt, one of the additional benefits of the Rally Sports Camp is the resurgence of the pick-up game. Schmidt said he has seen an interest in kids getting together to play informal neighborhood games — a trend he is happy to see, especially considering the amount of time kids spend on electronic devices each day. Schmidt said the Rally Sports team seeks to encourage kids to make friends and to get together to play sports at home.
“I’ve already started to see this in my own kids. I’ve got a 7-year-old, a 6-year-old and a 4-year-old, and you almost have to be intentional about giving them time in a day where they’re not immediately going to gravitate toward the screen,” he said. “Sports is an avenue to build community and to just release that inner kid inside of you. We’re trying to cultivate something that they can take from the camp and say, ‘How do we bring that home with us?’”
Program coordinators Emondre Johnson and Kalil Stroud help with the camps and the Zero Zero Foundation, each with an eagerness to instill the camp’s values into children from all over Birmingham.
Johnson lost his mother at an early age and said that experience has given him a heart for service and a desire to give back to his community, even establishing his own nonprofit providing toys for underprivileged children.
“I love hearing the success stories that each kid and families get after being in our programs and being involved with our services,” Johnson said. “It’s been pretty rewarding, and I’m blessed to be here.”
Stroud graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and learned about the Zero Zero Foundation while interning at Knight Eady during his senior year.
“After hearing a little about the Zero Zero mission, it really started to sound like my life,” he said. “Growing up, we really thought that the only way we were going to be successful and to have a career and make it out was professional sports. If it wasn’t that, then it was probably going to be something negative.
“I actually ended up visiting Zero Zero for the first time, and it just touched my heart,” Stroud said. “It felt like a really natural place for me to be.”
The 2024 Rally Sports Camp is scheduled for July 8-12 from 8:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. at Cahaba Heights Park. Registration is $195 per camper with a $25 multi-child discount for paying families, but the camp is free to qualifying campers. Registration is open through the spring of 2024.
Learn more and register online at rallysportscamp.com.
