After his seventh NJCAA World Series appearance in May, longtime junior college head coach Bobby Sprowl returned to Athens this week, June 17-20, for his annual four-day summer baseball camp at Athens Bible School.

“I really enjoy coming up to Athens each year, the kids are always kind and respectful, so this is always a great time for me,” Sprowl told The News Courier. “It’s fun when you see kids who you haven’t seen in a year, and you can really tell they have gotten better because they love what they are doing.”

The camp was for kids ages 6-17, and according to Sprowl, this year’s camp had about 80 eager and enthusiastic participants. The number of campgoers increased from last year’s camp that had close to 60 — displaying the continued growth of the game in Athens.

“I think the kids enjoy being here, they are excited about being here, and that shows in the energy they bring each day,” Sprowl said. “At the end of the day, baseball is a game. If you are not having fun you are going to quit, so we have fun while still learning and working together as a team.”

According to Sprowl, that has been his mindset toward baseball since the early years of his playing career. A career that led him to take the mound in the MLB as a pitcher in the late ’70s and early ’80s for the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros.

Sprowl carried that over to his coaching career, where he became a staple in Tuscaloosa area, spending more than three decades at Shelton State Community College.

“It feels like we are always taking the fun out of the game, with the way the MLB and travel ball is, everything is so serious,” Sprowl said. “That’s why people quit, so we really want to make sure they are having fun while improving their game.”

Sprowl was joined at the four-day camp by multiple players and coaches from Shelton State, who helped the young ball players hone their skills on the diamond.

“We were looking forward to making the drive up from Tuscaloosa because we love being out here to pour our knowledge of the game into these young kids,” Trenton Shirley, a rising sophomore on the Shelton State baseball team, said. “It has been a blessing to learn from Coach Sprowl. He is a living legend who has been around the game forever, so to get to learn from him has been amazing.”

During the four-day camp, the young campgoers were split into different groups based on their ages and skill level to practice throwing, hitting and the basic rules of the game.

On the last day of the camp on Thursday, the group of kids got the opportunity to showcase the skills they learned throughout the week in a slate of games.

“This is really the day that they look forward to the most,” Sprowl said. “Games are the biggest part of the camp to me, because not only do they show the things that we have taught them, but they really get to work together as a team.”

That sentiment was confirmed in the cheers that echoed across the different fields of play on Thursday. When a home run was hit, every player and coach in the area could hear it because of the loud screams that followed.

No louder cheer came from the collegiate players, who acted as coaches for each team. They seemingly cared about each win and loss more than the little kids.

“The workers are really the key to the camp, because the kids feed off of the energy and the effort that they put into it,” Sprowl said. “They do such a good job with the kids, and in a way as they are coaching they learn as well.”