Houston County baseball hosts kids summer camp

WARNER ROBINS — Though the 2023-2024 season and school year are over, Matt Hopkins and his Houston County Bears are still hard at work.

Tuesday through Thursday of this week HoCo baseball hosted a camp for kids in second through seventh grade, and Hopkins had plenty of his players there to help manage the largest group they’ve had in the six years of the camp.

Hopkins said 70 kids were there to participate on Wednesday; Both the diamond and batting cages were full.

In the four hours the camp ran every day Hopkins and the Bears ran the kids through various offensive and defensive drills.

Will Allen and Kendall Jackson were just a couple of familiar names who were there to help.

Allen helped kids field balls at first base, and Jackson ran through some outfield drills for a portion of the day.

Kids also got to hit in the batting cages as one of their many activities before a whiffle ball game at the end of the day.

Hopkins said it would be impossible to manage that many kids without the help of his Bears, but he wasn’t the only one being helped.

According to Hopkins, in the years he’s had his players help out, they’ve come out of their shell with a new confidence.

Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

Working with young kids and trying to teach them something can be a struggle for anyone, but as these players simplify the game of baseball to help introduce a new generation of baseball players, they grow as well.