All-Madden Campers Treated to Elite Instruction

High School athletes from 16 cities across the country are in Bradenton this weekend to study football with elite instructors. A handful of local athletes were among those taking to the gridiron for instruction.

The invited athletes through their performances at the Under Armour high school training camps and combines hosted in 16 cities, as well as prior IMG Madden Football Academy camps. Recent seven-on-seven participants also were invited.

quarterback Trent Miller came to the IMG Academies All-Madden Camp this weekend with one distinct honor: He was the returning Madden video game challenge champion.

Having dropped out of this year’s challenge – “I wanted to go out on top,” he said – Miller and the other campers quickly learned how far they had to go to become great at something other than a video game.

Because this camp, of course, is not just about truck-sticks or blips on a television that take place during the video game tournament after practice. It's about practicing footwork and running routes in midday mugginess and all those technical aspects that make high school athletes successful in college or even, more rarely, in the NFL

It didn’t take long for NFL quarterback Vinny Testaverde, also a Heisman trophy winner from Miami University, to set Miller and the other campers straight at the IMG Academies All-Madden Camp.

“It takes 10,000 hours to be great at something,” Testaverde said. “Eight years total.”

Testaverde would know. He holds the NFL record for touchdown passes -- 21 -- thrown in consecutive seasons. On the other hand, he also holds the record for most losses by a starting quarterback with 123.

“10,000 hours?” asked Out-of-Door Academy senior defensive back Brian Ragone. “That’s a long time.”

“I’m 15 years old,” Palmetto's Miller said. “So I’ll have to be about 25.”

Riverview sophomore safety Casey Gunderson, meanwhile, simmered in the instruction of Testaverde, former Miami University and Cleveland Browns quarterback Ken Dorsey, former Florida State and Carolina Panthers quarterback Chris Weinke, as well as Tampa Bay Buccaneer wide receiver Mark Carrier.

“It’s crazy because these are the guys you see on ESPN,” Gunderson said.

offensive lineman Josh Clark made his second All-Madden camp appearance.

“I’m being taught by two offensive linemen for the Super Bowl winning St. Louis Rams,” he said. “But I just came to work hard and get better. You can always learn something and this staff makes this the best place to go.”

The camp included athletes who have given verbal commitments: Offensive lineman Cordale Boyd (University of Arkansas), linebacker Shakeel Rashad (North Carolina State University) and wide receiver Gus Walley (Mississippi State University).

Other area athletes who attended were wide receivers Ricky Jones (Booker High) and Jeremy Jones (Riverview High), offensive linemen Kevin O’Brien (Palmetto High) and David Knevel (Palmetto High) and defensive back Ezra Robinson (Booker High).