Hawks Fans, although the heat and humidity hasn’t become stifling the summer is steadily approaching! Judging by the heavy bike traffic in the streets lately, school is finally out.

If you are looking for a way to get your baby Hawks out of the ‘nest’, we have several camp options offered through the athletic department.

Get the Baby Hawks of the Nest…Ah, the days of summer camps…my mother and father signed me up for every camp within a 250 mile radius of Currituck County for one reason: my safety and their sanity!

If you share the same sentiment as my parents did or if you are looking to get your kids out and about without having to drive all over the countryside, Chowan’s athletic department is offering five camps this summer in the areas of boy’s basketball, football, softball, tennis, and cheerleading.

It’s not too late to sign up! For more information on camp dates call the athletic department at 252.398.1239 or log onto the website at www.chowan.edu/athlet.

All play and no work…There is a common misconception, held by some-not all, out there that I would like to help clear up…Just because students are not on campus full time doesn’t mean that we here in the Chowan University Athletic Department play basketball all day!

I can’t tell you how many times I get questioned during the summer months-‘What do you all do in the summer time?’

Yes, its true-many here make a living on some sort of round ball, a game to many outside of the college coaching ranks but to those in it-it’s a way of life, a great way to earn a paycheck.

They take it as serious as you may take your job selling shower curtain rings or health insurance. Just because the school year is over doesn’t mean that the work is done. For many coaches the work is just beginning.

The summer months become a time to undertake those projects that have been piling up in the TO-DO TODAY pile (or what I like to term my ‘PRIORITY LIST’-seriously Dennis (my boss) I do work while I am sitting at my computer-there’s no solitaire at all!)

It’s a time to recruit new student-athletes or come up with new offensive strategies. It’s a time to create new policies and procedures or go to clinics to learn how to create new policies and procedures. It’s a time to take care the top shelf of the bookcase in the corner that now has a village of dust bunnies with their own operating policies and procedures, a time to change those old printer cartridges.

To prove my point, I called a coach just yesterday who didn’t have time to waste on my idle chitchat because the X’s and O’s on the whiteboard were getting antsy and needed a serious overhaul.

In all seriousness, I am here to say that coaches do actually work here; it’s not all play-even in the summer months. Collegiate coaches put in hours that can become unfathomable in and out of season.

Coaching college athletes requires more than just showing up to the field and coaching-there are levels upon levels and facets upon facets relative to college coaching and yes, those levels and facets keep us employed and working hard through the summer months too!

What’s in store…Every day that goes by puts us one day closer to the start of a new sports season in August! Before you know it, Hawks fans, I will be giving up actual game day updates instead of this incessant chatter! T

he department is in the process of putting the finishing touches on schedules, hiring new coaches, and setting preseason practice schedules. As soon as I get the information, I plan to pass it on to you! In the meantime, check out our summer camps.

Until next time, Go Hawks!