GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
ELSA — Wearing a white tank top emblazoned with a to-scale print of a chiseled human torso, McAllen Memorial defensive lineman Ricky Minor looks more fit for a day at the beach than an evening football camp. Nevertheless, Minor is nothing short of dominant in one-on-one drills.
Lining up against some of the Valley’s top offensive line talent, the 6-foot, 272-pound Minor effortlessly beats them off the simulated snap, regularly slapping the blue pad to the turf well before the 3-second time limit.
After conquering challenger after challenger, Minor lines up for his second go against Christian Mascorro, who traveled two and a half hours from Refugio to take part in the South Texas Showcase camp July 25 at Benny Layton Sr. Memorial Stadium in Elsa. Playing at the Class 2A level with Refugio, Mascorro has garnered Division I offers from Davidson and Liberty entering his senior year, and he’s been in touch with about a dozen other schools.
The chance to work against Minor was a big reason Mascorro made the trip, and he proved up to the task, standing Minor up for the first and only time that session. Minor described his encounter with Mascorro as “once in a lifetime.”
“Down here in the Valley, we don’t get many DI athletes,” Minor said. “It’s really an honor to be able to work out with him, and for him to help me get better.”
Such is the goal of South Texas Showcase and its camps: To give athletes a chance to work against high-level competition they otherwise wouldn’t see. The summer showcase is one of a bevy of camps designed to help players develop football skills and prepare for the more rigorous college camps, where top performances could lead to scholarships offers.
“They’re getting looked at, and it comes down to exposure,” said UTSA assistant football coach and recruiter Polo Gutierrez. “Nobody goes down to South Texas but us, but when you come to these camps, all of a sudden there are about 40 kids in South Texas that get scholarships.”
Most major football schools offer some type of summer camp, but Gutierrez warns that visiting camps at Texas, Texas A&M or Baylor is a waste of time and money for players who aren’t already on the big dogs’ radar.
At UTSA, however, players are also scouted by coaches from Division I-AA and Division II schools. The evaluation process starts with the basics: height, weight, 40-yard dash time, shuttle time and vertical jump. Then, players get a chance to show off in position drills or one-on-ones.
“Some guys, we don’t know anything about, and they come bust out a great 40 and have a great day beating guys that we wanted to offer, and then all of a sudden it turns,” Gutierrez said.
The possibility of landing a scholarship based on an impressive showing at a college camp extends beyond football. When PSJA North’s Ileana Aleman signed with the University of Arkansas in Nov. 2014 to play softball, she said an offseason skills camp played a major role. Mike Larabee, then the head coach at Arkansas, echoed the sentiment.
“She came up to a summer camp in June and wowed us with her defense,” Larabee said when Aleman was signed.
And the evaluation process works both ways. Players get a feel for college drills and coaching, with some camps even offering overnight housing in campus dorms.
McAllen Memorial running back Trevor Speights, the Valley’s most sought-after football recruit, has participated in Division I camps everywhere from UTSA to Oregon State.
A much lesser-known prospect, Edinburg North incoming junior quarterback Cristian Espinoza spent his summer bouncing from camp to camp. He started at the Air It Out passing academy in San Antonio before heading to college camps at Texas State and the University of Houston.
“I pick up different techniques, and usually there’s something different that needs to be tweaked about my throwing and my footwork,” Espinoza said. “I just pick it up and take notes.”
Espinoza also worked locally at Pharr’s Golazo sports complex with Jamaar Taylor, a Mission High alum who went on to play at Texas A&M and in the NFL with the New York Giants. Since giving up professional football in 2006, Taylor has returned to the Valley and opened the Taylor Sports and Human Performance Lab, which aims to improve the form and technique of players across all sports.
During the summer, Taylor offers weekly football camps in addition to regular speed and strength camps, which aim to build “more efficient” athletes.
“We have a lot of rounded backs,” Taylor says. “If we can fix their backs, fix their glutes and hamstrings, they’ll have a better chance of getting that Division I scholarship.”
Those scholarships are also the primary aim for South Texas Showcase and director BJ Garcia. Although his camps in the Valley aren’t seen by college coaches, the experience is designed to mimic the drills and process college scouts will put players through at their own camps.
Garcia and his staff — comprised of current and former coaches and players — run through the same formula as UTSA: stretching, timing in the 40 and shuttle, position-group drills and one-on-ones.
During the camp in Elsa, players practiced and tweaked their form on the shuttle and 40-yard dash between reps, finding ways to trim tenths of a second off their times. For those who would visit the UTSA camp just a few days later, such as McAllen High’s Gunnar Henderson, the South Texas Showcase camp acted as a dress rehearsal. Garcia recalled a similar situation with Edcouch-Elsa quarterback Marco Aguinaga, who had a leg up on footwork drills at the TCU quarterback camp after being exposed to them via South Texas Showcase.
“What we’re trying to do is bridge the gap of what your coach is asking of you on a Friday, and what those college coaches want in camp in the morning,” Garcia said. “What we can do is help them get better.”
The three-hour camp in Elsa drew 40 athletes, and Garcia said a camp in June at Weslaco East drew 63.
Each of Garcia’s camps ends with the naming of an MVP, and Henderson was the winner in Elsa. His neon green shirt was stained in blood by the end of the night — the result of an inadvertent elbow on a diving, one-handed catch. But beyond the battle scars, the rising sophomore left with a greater knowledge of what to expect in both college camps and his first varsity season.
“I got used to the contact and the size, and the speed of the game,” Henderson said. “These camps that South Texas Showcase puts on help a lot.”
The biggest barrier to entry is cost, though local camps have tried to stay manageable. Taylor Sports and Human Performance charges $20 per session, and the South Texas Showcase camp in Elsa ran $40. Garcia said a portion of that money went to the family of Anthony Segura, an Edcouch-Elsa player who recently died in a car accident. Garcia’s coaches worked at a reduced rate, and Garcia left with no profit.
Espinoza said his camps ran anywhere from $30 — UTSA’s cost — to $400, depending on if they were overnight. Donna High quarterback Edward Dougherty paid $605 for a four-day stint at the Manning Passing Academy.
For the cost, the camps aim to offer more than just football skills. Espinoza said the college camps he attended outlined the NCAA’s requirements for admission and the best practices to be recruited.
Taylor says his camps aim to build mental strength and provide a crash-course in sports psychology — “Don’t worry about being last place. Just run your race.”
Near the midway point of the South Texas Showcase camp in Elsa, Garcia paused to outline to athletes the value of keeping their social media clean and having their academics in order.
“The biggest thing is mentally understanding what’s required,” Garcia said. “We tell the kids, ‘We don’t expect you to improve in those three hours. But we’re giving you the tools to improve.’”
And, Garcia hopes, the tools to someday land college scholarships.
For more stories, videos, photos and graphics covering recruiting in the Valley, visit themonitor.com/recruiting.