Minnesota Vikings bring youth football camp to Duluth

Wednesday the Minnesota Vikings descended on Duluth for their Scheels youth football camp.

Originally scheduled for the Duluth East gridiron, rain pushed the camp inside of Ordean East Middle School where instructors got to work training around 200 kids.

“We visit a bunch of communities every year and we hadn’t been to Duluth in a few years and wanted to make sure we provided the kids of Duluth with another opportunity to play football during the summer months,” Joe Rush said, the Vikings youth and high school football manager.

Starting their summer camp series in 2018 this marks their third full summer of traveling across Vikings nation.

“Our mantra for the Vikings youth and high school football department is teach, play, grow. So we teach football fundamentals, we create opportunities for kids to play the game, and then we grow the game. So increasing participation numbers and creating more opportunities for kids to play the sport.”

Kids run through drills at the Vikings youth camp held at Ordean East Middle School.

Instructors consisted of high school coaches, former college players, and even athletic trainers. They taught kids six to 14 years old warmups, drills and, while a non-contact camp, proper tackling form.

The two hour camp was enjoyed by both boys and girls.

“One of the big initiatives for the Minnesota Vikings in our youth high school football space is girls flag football. We are developing some pilot programs at the middle school level, really looking to grow it at the high school level and hopefully get it to be a varsity sport at the high school level here in the next handful of years,” Rush said.

Vikings youth camps are now expanding out of Minnesota into North and South Dakota and Iowa.