Sometime this winter, a family will put a non-refundable deposit on a kicking camp after ten minutes of research and a highlight video on Instagram. Maybe that family is yours. Nothing wrong with camps — I’ve seen them change trajectories — but the difference between a great one and an expensive one shows up in the answers to about six questions, so let’s ask them before the money moves.
Disclosure: This post may include affiliate links. Purchases through them can earn me a commission at no extra cost to you, which is what keeps Kickers of Earth going. I only point you at resources I would tell a teammate to buy.
Question 1: How Many Kickers Per Coach on the Field?
This is the number that decides everything else. A camp with one well-known name and forty specialists means your kid gets a few minutes of actual eyes-on coaching and a lot of standing around charting. That can still be worth it — competition and charting have value — but you should walk in knowing what you bought.
Ask directly: “How many kickers per coach, and does every kicker get individual attention each day?” A ratio around four or five to one means real coaching. Ten to one means you’re buying a reps environment, not instruction, and you should price it accordingly.
Question 2: What Gets Charted, and Do We Keep the Sheet?
Good camps chart like a college staff would: distance, hash, make or miss, operation time, conditions. Bad camps run a workout. You want the numbers, because the numbers are what tell you where your kid actually is — and what the work between now and spring has to fix.
The follow-up matters too: “Can we keep the chart sheet?” If the answer is no, that’s a camp optimizing its day, not your development.
Question 3: Does Anyone Film, and Do We Leave With Video?
Film is the part that keeps paying after the weekend ends. A slow-motion clip from behind and one from the side is worth more in February than a t-shirt from the camp itself, because that’s the video you can send to a coach or bring to a lesson.
Ask: “Will we leave with filmed reps, and in what format?” If filming is an add-on nobody mentions, plan to bring your own phone and tripod and handle it yourself. That’s a fine plan — just make it a plan.
Question 4: Who Is Actually Coaching My Kid?
The name on the flyer is not always the name on the field. Big-name specialists sometimes show for a speech and a photo, while the teaching comes from a rotating staff of college kickers — some of whom are excellent, some of whom are just strong-legged and enthusiastic.
Ask: “Will the head instructor coach drills in my son’s group, and can you tell me who else will be coaching?” Staff bios on a website are nice. A direct answer to that question is better.
Question 5: What Happens After the Camp Ends?
A camp is two days. Development is a year. The camps and programs that actually move kickers forward have a follow-up structure — film review after the event, a way to ask questions, a plan for the next block. Ask what happens in the week after, and whether anyone will look at a video your kid sends in March.
If the honest answer is “nothing, that’s what the next camp is for,” you now know the product’s shape, and you can budget for it.
Question 6: What Does a Rep Actually Look Like?
Some camps run every rep as a live operation — snapper, holder, kicker, timed. Others let specialists kick into nets all morning. Both exist for reasons, but if your kid’s problem is operation timing, kicking into a net all day won’t touch it.
Ask what a typical rep block looks like and how many full-operation reps your kid should expect per day. Then match that answer to what he actually needs to improve.
Red Flags While You’re Asking
- Concrete numbers are dodged — ratios, rep counts, charting format all stay vague.
- Every answer is about exposure and “getting seen,” and none of it is about teaching.
- Refunds and weather policies are unclear until you press hard.
- The marketing leans on one pro kicker’s name while the coaching plan is thin.
- Nobody can describe what improvement looks like or how they’d measure it.
What a Good Camp Day Should Look Like
Before you compare options, it helps to know the shape of a well-run day: a proper warm-up, technique blocks with small groups, charted competition, film at some point, and a closer who explains what to work on next. I laid out the full day-by-day in my piece on what happens at a field goal kicking camp — compare any camp’s schedule against that and the gaps jump out fast.
Do the Math Before You Book
Be honest about the total: camp fee, travel, hotel, meals, and a weekend of your family’s time. Then ask what that same money buys somewhere else. I ran the full cost-versus-value question in my post on whether kicking camps are worth it, and the answer is genuinely “sometimes” — usually yes when a kicker needs competition and charting, sometimes no when what he needs is mechanics.
When Lessons Beat Camps
If the thing your kid needs is individual correction — and winter is the season for it — a camp can’t give that no matter how good it is. One coach, one kicker, film on the table, a plan for the next month. That’s what my one-on-one coaching is, and I’d rather families choose it honestly than stumble into it after a disappointing camp. To understand the difference in approach, start with whether a kicking coach makes sense for you and my breakdown of the types of kicking coaches out there — technique coaches, mental-game coaches and college consultants all sell different things.
And if you want a self-serve starting point before any of it, the technique chapters of The Art of Kicking give you a vocabulary for evaluating any coach you talk to — including me. Use KOE for 10% off.
Ask the six questions. Whatever answers come back, at least you’re buying the camp on purpose.
