Carolina Panther Steve Smith races campers in one for their favorite parts of the 5th Annual Steve Smith Football ProCamp, once again sponsored by WJZY & WMYT. |
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For the 5th consecutive year Capitol’s Charlotte Division television stations CW46 WJZY and My TV12 WMYT were the exclusive media sponsors of Carolina Panther superstar receiver, Steve Smith’s Football ProCamp.
Once again, the stations joined with Smith and NFL Rookie of the Year Quarterback, Cam Newton, to host the 500 campers at the SOLD OUT camp on June 15 and 16, 2012, at Ardrey Kell High School in Charlotte.
CW46 and My TV12 along with the 500 lucky campers got to throw the football around with Steve Smith and Cam Newton during the two day camp. Boys and girls ages 7 to 14 learned fundamental football skills and had a whole lot of fun playing with the pros and getting lots of autographs.
The camp split the campers into small groups by age to work with local area coaches doing drills and playing football games in hopes of winning their division on “Championship Saturday” at the end of camp and taking home a trophy.
Wyatt Kelada & Zachary Hill won a free trip to camp thanks to CW46 & My TV12’s online contest. |
CW46 and My TV12 held a website “register to win” leading up to camp with two of our clients, Blue Bell Ice Cream and Papa John’s Pizza, to send two lucky kids to the camp for free! This contest proved to be even more exciting since the camp was sold out and had a waiting list. Our winners, Wyatt Kelada and Zachary Hill, were thrilled to have the opportunity to go to camp!
Each camper got a gift bag full of goodies from sponsors, a photo with the pros, a camp shirt that Steve Smith went around and autographed as well as an opportunity to be one of the “Campers of the Day” and receive fabulous prizes from Smith like Wii’s, PSP’s, IPod Touch’s, autographed team items and even signed cleats from Smith just to mention a few!
In addition to Smith playing on the field, Cam Newton and his brother, Cecil “CJ” Newton, who plays with the Baltimore Ravens were there, as well as Panthers Charles Godfrey, Greg Olsen and rookie Josh Norman to name a few.
Campers also had the opportunity for a question and answer session with Smith and Newton. Questions ranged from your favorite color and favorite food to handling the pressure of being quarterback in the NFL.
Bojangle’s fed the campers on Friday, and on Saturday CW46 and My TV12 arranged for Papa John’s to provide pizza to all and Blue Bell Ice Cream to give everyone a cool and refreshing treat at the conclusion of camp.
“I absolutely love to tie on my cleats and get out here and play around with these kids,” said Steve Smith. “Yeah, they want to get some autographs but mostly they just want to have fun and play football and this is the best part of my summer,” added Smith.
A highlight of the camp was letting each camper race to find the fastest kid in the camp for the chance to race Smith in a 40 yard dash! An area coach asked to race Smith as well and what an amazing sight of these athletes. Smith is extremely fast and competitive! (See photo at top.) Smith autographed the cleats he wore in the dash and gave them to his competitor… after Smith won.
CW46 and My TV12 look forward to the 6th Annual Steve Smith Camp and the opportunity to continue this unique partnership with Smith and the Carolina Panthers.
Thanks to WJZY’s Angela Golden for this capcom story & to WJZY’s John Rose for these capcom photos.
