After a season that saw his team make the 2023 NJCAA World Series a few weeks ago, coach Bobby Sprowl was back in Athens for his four-day summer baseball camp at Athens Bible School.

“To me when you were a young kid growing up you were at the youth-league fields with your buddies,” Sprowl said. “You go to play all day, and that’s how you get better at the game.”

The former MLB pitcher in the late ’70s and early ’80s for the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros, found even greater success off the mound as the head coach at Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa. Sprowl has spent more than 32 years as the coach of the Buccaneers, and in that time span he has led his team to six World Series appearances.

“Anytime you play athletics you have to realize it is really just a game, so you have to have fun while doing it,” Sprowl said. “Sometimes kids today lose the fun and that causes them to leave the sport, so we really do this to allow these kids to have fun and enjoy the sport with others their age.”

Sprowl held his annual camp this week from Monday to Thursday, for young boys between the ages of 6-17. More than 60 kids showed up for the camp, and more than a few enthusiastically expressed their gratitude for Sprowl and the job he and his coaching staff have done over the course of the week.

“It’s been fun, because you can get a lot of valuable lessons from it,” one young camper, Ryan Faust, said. Another young camp goer from behind him said, “It’s been beyond fun!”

“The games we play at the end of the day have been the most fun part, because we get to hit home runs,” Faust said.

Sprowl was joined at his annual summer camp with his other coaches and some of his players from Shelton State, to help instruct and teach the young boys the fundamentals of the game.

“It means everything to give back to the little kids in this community,” Shelton State infielder Davis Randolph said. “We want to share our knowledge that we get from Coach Sprowl, so hopefully they can learn enough to want to continue in the sport.”

Jake Vickerson, longtime assistant coach under Sprowl at Shelton, added that he was more than happy to continue teaching at the Athens camp for years to come.

“It’s been a good run to say the least,” Vickerson said. “It’s always refreshing to be around the kids and see their enthusiasm for the game, because as much as we are trying to give to them, they are giving right back to us.”