Proud to claim the title
By: Lyn Dowling
From a distance, Ron Davis doesn’t exactly look like a Marine. On a muggy morning in Viera, he is wearing a big, baggy T-shirt, shorts and a wide-brimmed hat to keep the beating sun off his neck and shoulders. Surrounded by a mob of kids, he is soft-spoken, jocular and paternal with the children, who range from 7 to 12 years old.
Then, before he calls them together to talk about their next exercise, someone suggests he exchange the cowboy-style hat for a “boonie,” the flat-brimmed, camouflage cover worn by Marines in places far less friendly than Viera Regional Park. Davis obliges, sets the headgear just so and ambles over to speak to the kids, where he notices that two boys are squabbling and generally acting as they shouldn’t.
“You, on that end of the line; you, on the other end,” he commands them, very quietly. Davis’ former profession becomes abundantly clear: Currently employed by a defense contractor, he is a former staff sergeant, and though he is not much for screaming and snarling, drill instructor-style, he will have order and will accomplish his mission.
His mission is not merely to babysit children during the languid months of summer vacation, but to see that they go outside, play and get fit, and so he calls his camps “Training Days.”
“I go back some time with camps. Actually, when I was (in elementary school), my mom, a teacher, ran a sports camp in Tallahassee, at Florida A&M,” he says. “Lately, while coaching my son’s football team, I discovered that so many of the kids who come out are really out of shape. I mean really out of shape. It amazes me that young kids can be that way.”
Davis says he notices changes in children’s sleep patterns too, explaining that he would be exhausted after coming home from his mother’s camps that he would “just go to sleep.
“We didn’t have to compete with Play Station and Wii. Now kids watch television or play video games all day and so they’re not tired enough to get to sleep at the right time at night. You can see the results at school . . . . It almost becomes another job for the parent: dragging the kid outside to play and just be a kid.”
And that is exactly what Davis has them do at his camps, at which each day is divided into segments: mornings for agility games, obstacle courses, running and other drills in which the children can chart their progress from day to day; afternoons for sports and organized field games, with free play at 4 p.m.
“Because we’re independent of the schools (or other organizations), we’re not hamstrung by the system, so we can do sports they don’t usually do at school camps,” he says.
Fridays, he sets aside for fun, bringing to the park a giant, inflatable water slide, water guns and other summertime delights, so that “they just run all day,” he says with a grin.
Rain does not equal a problem, because in case of foul weather, Davis simply moves the kids into the park’s recreation center, where they can use the gym and other facilities, or exercise with, dare he say it, a Wii.
The campers enjoy their training days.
“I like sports and I like being outside, so when we come here, we get to stay outside a lot,” says Laura Lanthripp, who joined other family members in making the trip from Port St. John to the Viera park
“It’s fun, and athletic-wise, you learn a lot,” adds Robert Hicks of Melbourne.
“You get a lot of exercise and it’s really fun,” says Danielle Kverek, who recently moved to Brevard. “Yeah, there’s the heat, and it’s a little hard to get used to, but it’s fun because he makes it fun.”
He would like to make it permanent too. Training Days is in the process of becoming a nonprofit organization, and once its status is finalized, Davis hopes to get a permanent facility. He will apply for grants to do so,
Meanwhile, the onetime Stinger (air defense) gunner, onetime elite embassy guard and onetime member of the counter-drug task force, laughs again about how much the Leatherneck comes through in his camps.
“A lot comes into the camps. It’s the same kind of thing you get with young Marines: You find the alpha males and kind of go after them, because they’re going to try you,” he says, gazing at his two youthful reprobates.
“But if you let them know who is in charge, and that they’re here to accomplish something, you’ll earn their respect. If we convince one kid that playing – exercise – is fun and worth it; mission accomplished.”
Training Days camps for 7- through 12-year-olds take place from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays through Aug. 6 at Viera Regional Park. Cost is $60 per week. For more information, go to www.trainingdaysinc.com.
Want something publicized on Play Brevard? E-mail ldowling@cfl.rr.com.
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