FAIRFIELD — For the second consecutive day at Fairfield High School, Montana State athletes conducted a kids camp. Monday saw three football players hold a two-hour session whereas on Tuesday nine women's basketball players put on an all-day clinic.
"I'm so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to come to Fairfield and just help grow the game and give back to the community," incoming sophomore and Saco native Teagan Erickson said during the camp. "A similar community to where I came from."
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Erickson — who was a vital piece of Sac-Whitewater-Hinsdale's 73-game winning streak, the longest in Class C girls basketball history — said it was a special day for her because she can provide motivation to younger basketball players from smaller communities that it's possible to play at the Division I level.
"Even though you have that small-town stereotype, it's still possible," Erickson said. "Get in the gym, work on your craft and just ... you can make it as long as you just keep working at it."
Incoming Malta senior Neva Jacobson was in attendance of Tuesday's event.
"It's a lot different learning all these things from older people because I'm normally the oldest and don't really learn a lot," Jacobson said. "So I like learning a bunch of new things from older girls that are still older than me but kind of close to my age."
Jacobson said a camp like this is pushing her to get to the next level like Erickson did.
"I've always wanted to play college basketball," Jacobson said. "Now this is just really motivating me."
Similar to Monday's camp, this was also a name, image and likeness deal through the Bobcat Collective.
One of the main organizers of the camp is Pat Goldhahn, a familiar coaching name in Montana.
"Part of our agreement is that they have to come do a camp in our community — or their community — and so we talked about coming to Fairfield, and then just working with the collective we talked about maybe we could make this bigger," Goldhahn said.
"That's how we ended up getting not the entire Cat team but all the upperclassmen here, and we have everybody but the incoming freshmen. They're at orientation or we may have even had them here as well."
Erickson said she hopes this type of camp is not just a one-time deal.
"I'd love to come up to Fairfield again next year and then possibly other places in the future," Erickson said. "Our team, we've enjoyed it so far. So just to keep spreading it around to smaller communities that don't get as much (recognition)."
