Father Son Development Academy

Today was the turn of the older boys to participate in the Father Son Development Academy which is an initiative of the Carlton Football Club and supported financially by the Spirit of Carlton Past and Present. Geoff Southby represented the Spirit of Carlton at this morning’s session as a show of further support for the club, the parents and boys participating in this exciting project.

The parents and potential father son prospects, along with President Stephen Kernahan and other Carlton officials all gathered in the Don Chipp Theatrette to begin proceedings. Assistant coach Alan Richardson began by giving an introduction which explained that the number one objective of the camp was to make the boys feel like they belong, each boy had to make their own decisions about where they wanted to take their football. The most important thing is that they know the club is there for them if they need them. He highlighted that Soccer had been dealing with the issues surrounding the development of young athletes from boys to men for 30 years and that Carlton had used some of the knowledge gained by Soccer over the years to develop the program for this week.

Stephen Kernahan then spoke and referred individually to each boy, welcoming them to the club and commenting on the contributions each of their fathers had made to the club and to football in general. He spoke about the club and its culture and expectations of its players.

Each boy was presented with Carlton gear including personalised shirts, most of them towered over Rod Ashman who was handing over the Guernseys. They all had a sparkle in their eyes and seemed genuinely excited to be there, some had come from as far away as Perth to attend.

Then it was the turn of Jarrad Waite to give a talk on what it was like to be a father son prospect and the process of being picked for the Blues and becoming a player. After that some video was played which included some highlights of the careers of the fathers of each of the boys. It was great seeing a few little reactions to the video from some of the boys sitting next to their dads.

Finally it was time for parents and children to part ways and the Club took the boys into the training facilities to begin the next stage of the program.

The Spirit of Carlton would like to wish every boy the best of luck in whatever they wish to do, if they did not know before, they certainly know now that they are part of this great club.

Update: The Club has released a story this afternoon as well click on the following link to read – Back to the Future for Academy Kids

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *