Sharp prepares for summer camps

Jayhawk Slant talked with former Kansas running back Jake Sharp. These days Sharp is busy running youth football camps around the state of Kansas. His next upcoming camp will be in Olathe on July 10th.

Sharp on what he expects from the Kansas running backs this year...I'm excited to see what James Sims will do with another year under him. I was impressed with his maturity for a freshman last year. Deshaun Sands is always fun to watch and considered royalty in the KU football family. I am really excited to see what Darrian miller is all about. I think he is going to turn some heads if they decided to play him this fall.

Sharp's views on head coach Turner Gill...I am impressed with how coach Gill encourages the players to be more than football players but to be active positive role models in the community. I really like how coach Gill takes time to give back and touch the lives of alot of less fortunate people and young people, whether it being letting a youngster attend a practice or interacting with the team. I think that's very cool and what being a college athlete is all about. Not everyone has a chance to make the type of impact the guys can on a child, and coach Gill sees it as their duty to uphold this

Sharp on his experience playing arena football last year...My experience was fun. I had a blast playing in Wichita which has a great KU following and feel fortunate for the opportunity the Wild gave me. It's by far the fastest game I have ever played and what surprised me was the amount of talent and guys who had career or briefs stints in the NFL who played on these arena teams. It really shows you how many good football players there are in comparison to jobs available.

Sharp on how he organizes his football camp... One thing that really separates our camps from others is we really coach the kids up. We have coach Diener from Gardner Edgerton who comes and keeps things organized so we can get as many reps to the kids as we can. That's what it is really all about, you never want to have kids standing around at the camp. You always want to have fun but it is also about getting kids better. I think the biggest thing is just being able to teach kids things that I would have loved to learn when I was a kid

Sharp on his future plans… Something I would love to do down the line is open a facility in Lawrence that I could train kids full time. It is something that I have talked to a lot of people about and that's one of my goals down the line.

Sharp on information about his upcoming camp We are at Olathe Northwest High School from 11am-4pm on Saturday July 9th for youth camp for 1st through 8th graders and July 10th is high school only. We will have team 7 on 7 and test in 40, short shuttle and broad jump. The cost is $85 and that includes Mr. Goodcents lunch and a camp t-shirt.This is a little bit different than the speed camps that we had going on because that was geared mainly towards high school kids and with this you also have a lot of younger kids who want to get out and participate so we are trying to make it open to everybody. We will divide everybody into groups based on their skill level and their ages. Former KU players Kerry Meier and Caleb Blakesley will also be there along with players from K-State, Emporia State and Sam Houston State.