Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- For the 17th straight year, hundreds of football players from across Alaska gave up a bit of their summer vacation this week to tackle, block and fire a football under a hot June sun.

The All-Alaska Football camp at Colony High attracted 412 players this year as well as more than 50 high school coaches, said camp founder and director Randy Klingenmeyer.

About 25 college coaches, mostly from the NAIA and NCAA Division II and III levels, worked the four-day camp, which ended Wednesday.

According to Klingenmeyer, upward of 30 players who take part in the camp each year are recruited to play college football.

"That's what keeps (college coaches) coming back," said Klingenmeyer, a former Dimond High assistant. "That, and they love Alaska. They love the way they are treated. And they have a chance to do some fishing."

Valley City State University is one school that has benefitted greatly from recruiting in Alaska. The NAIA school in Valley City, N.D., currently has 16 Alaskans on the roster posted on its Web site.

Most of those players were first seen at the All-Alaska Camp, said Valley City State defensive coordinator Gregg Horner.

"This is a recruiting lifeline for us," said Horner, who supervised on-field activities for this year's camp.

The first camp, in 1992, attracted 102 players. Klingenmeyer said the camp exploded in popularity about five years ago, when it shifted its focus away from fundamentals to teaching offensive and defensive systems.

Consequently, entire teams began attending, including head and assistant coaches.

If a team wants to, say, install the Wing-T offense, that team will be paired with a college coach who specializes in the Wing-T.

Each team participates in the camp as a unit. A "renegade team" includes players attending on their own.

Lenny Doerfler, an assistant high school coach in Bend, Ore., and a former assistant at Western Oregon University, said he's been coming to the camp for 11 years. He said many of the coaches -- from both the college and high school ranks -- have formed strong ties over the years and follow how each is doing throughout the season.

Those connections keep him coming back -- that and the fishing. As sunburned players were packing up gear Wednesday, Doerfler was heading off to the Russian River.

Daily News sports reporter Ron Wilmot can be reached at rwilmot@adn.com or 907-352-6712.

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