Fernley High School’s football program and the Fernley Youth Football League completed their second annual youth camp July 15-17, a three-day skills and fundamentals session designed to prepare FYFL athletes for the start of conditioning July 20 and strengthen the connection between the youth program and the high school.
FYFL President Roman Sisneros said the camp gives young players a head start before formal practices begin and helps new athletes adjust.
“The goal of the camp is to get these kids fine tuned, ready for conditioning,” he said. “They get the experience before they get into the grind and the struggles and the not so fun days.”
The camp was free for all FYFL athletes and funded entirely by Rip City Riders, which sponsored the event and covered the cost for every participant. Sisneros said the group also previously raised money to provide Guardian Caps for all FYFL players.
Fernley High School coach Anfernee Sloan said the sponsorship was new this year.
“Those guys actually sponsored the event, instead of any of the kids having to pay,” he said.
FYFL fields seven football teams: 6U, 8U, two 10U teams, 11U, 13U and 14U. Sisneros said about 180 players signed up this year, and more than 100 participated in the camp.
The league also operates a large cheer program with 160 athletes and 10 teams, ranging in age from 3 to 14. FYFL Cheer has won multiple regional titles and national championships and sent a team to Pop Warner Nationals in North Carolina last year. A separate JAMZ Cheer & Dance Camp was held the same weekend, with FYFL subsidizing half the cost for participants.
Sloan said the youth football camp benefits both programs. High school players served as coaches during the camp, helping run drills and teach fundamentals. Many of them also serve as junior coaches for FYFL teams during the season.
Sloan said the experience gives his athletes a chance to develop leadership and communication skills.
“It’s teaching my guys social skills,” he said. “It teaches them how to work with people and to understand how to give back, being able to make it bigger than just us.”
Sloan said the camp also gives the high school staff an early look at upcoming classes, especially seventh- and eighth-grade athletes. But he emphasized the community connection as its primary value.
“The biggest thing is our ability to give back to the community,” he said.
Attendance more than doubled from last year’s inaugural camp, and Sloan said he hopes to expand participation to between 150 and 180 next year. His ultimate goal is to have 200 youth players, which would allow organizers to divide the groups by age and position for more specialized coaching.
Sisneros said the relationship between FYFL and the high school program has strengthened in recent years. He said former head coach Chris Ward made it a priority to involve the youth league with the high school program. Sloan has continued that effort and regularly stops by youth practices, checks in on players and encourages high school athletes to coach.
“He pops in our practices and gives the kids a pep talk if it looks like they’re struggling for the day,” Sisneros said. “I think our relationship is really good and it’s getting better.”
Sisneros said the older FYFL teams run a modified version of the high school’s offensive system, with teams adopting shared cadence and terminology as players get older. He said the goal is to prepare athletes before they reach high school.
“At the end of the day, we’re a feeder program for the high school,” he said. “If we do good, they do good.”
Sloan said the camp’s main objective is keeping young athletes engaged and returning each year.
“Retention, retention, retention,” he said.
Sisneros said the growth of FYFL directly affects the high school program. He pointed to past seasons when low youth participation led to smaller high school rosters.
“That 2019 state championship, the juniors and seniors, those two youth programs were dominant, and then our program kind of died off for a little bit,” he said. “When our numbers were low, the high school numbers were low. Now that our numbers are climbing, their numbers are climbing.”
The camp also gives young players the chance to interact with and learn from the older high school players they look up to, most of whom came through the same program before reaching high school.
“They idolize these guys, and they look up to them, and you can see it with the high school boys that they're seeing that what they do means something other than to their parents and their families,” Sisneros said. “It means a lot to the community.”
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