Sports Camp Family Impact – Whalen Family

Jill’s many roles - coach’s wife, camper mom, and coaches’ wives huddle leader – have provided many highlights. She most values connections and encouragement. First, her family develops deep and fun relationships with other coaches and families in just four days, and those connections remain throughout the year. Her second highlight is watching her kids solidly connect sports and faith. While it often appears that sports and faith are to remain separate, sports camp shows coaches and athletes how to coach and play with all of who they are, not separating or downplaying their faiths in any way.

Jill has seen how her kids have translated this into other areas of their lives as well. Noah and Solomon are college students who run their own business in the summers and have integrated their faith into their college and work life. They learned what that looked like at sports camp. Because they know they are reflecting Christ through it, they run their business with integrity.

Solomon always loves doing camp as a family because he can see his family members go deeper in their relationships with God. He also loves seeing his dad as a coach, his mom as a leader, and his siblings as athletes who are growing in their own sports abilities. The shared experience naturally gives his family a greater connection with each other. “It has always been the highlight of my summer and I can’t wait to go back and be a huddle leader to help the campers like I used to be grow in their faith and sport,” Solomon said.

Noah has been going to camp for fifteen years and has played either basketball or football each year. Noah enjoys the entire atmosphere at camp. The people are kind, everyone is having a great time, and Noah said, “Your faith grows to an all-time high as everything around you pushes you to grow spiritually.” He loves doing camp as a family because he can watch his siblings compete and spend time learning about God together. Because they have shared experiences from camp, they can continue to grow as a family when they get back home. One example of this was when they added “God-time” to their family routine after camp. It has helped the whole family to be more intentional about growing together.

Emery is Chad and Jill’s oldest son. Jill remarked that Emery is so sports-minds that it was really good for him to attend sports camp every year. He learned to put his faith first, no matter how much he loves sports. That became an important lesson when he was in middle school. Emery contracted a life-threatening illness that was supposed to have lifelong effects, but he has suffered none of them. The Whalens believe it is a miracle from God and have used his story at camp to show God’s faithfulness.

Cambria is Chad and Jill’s only daughter and loves the connections she has made at camp. She looks forward to getting together with the other campers every year at sports camp and even throughout the year back home. Sports camp has created lasting, deep friendships that are centered around sports AND faith.

The Whalen Family encourages young athletes to attend camp because they know the incredible impact camp can have. Noah has this to say to those who are considering attending camp:

“Camp will be one of the best experiences of your life. No matter what level you are in sports or how strong your relationship with God is, this is a place that you want to be. If you are second guessing yourself or not sure if you want to attend, just do it because you won’t regret it. After going for 15 years in a row, camp is still something that I look forward to every summer.”

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Minnesota also believes in the power of camp and wants to see as many campers attend as possible. For this reason, all campers from Minnesota will receive free transportation from two areas in the Twin Cities metro area. Registration is now open. Click here to to see videos, learn more details, and register for camp.