New London — New London High School offensive lineman Gregory Newkirk hasn't thought much about being a senior. He said it hasn't really hit him yet.

But at his high school's youth football camp on Thursday, Newkirk was finally forced to realize that maybe he's starting to get old.

"Do you have ChapStick?" one of the younger campers walked up to Newkirk and asked, trying his best to stifle a smile.

"Nah I never heard that one," Newkirk responded. "What's up?"

"Lick your lips. When you ask if they have ChapStick, they lick their lips," the camper said, expectantly waiting for Newkirk to lick his lips.

The joke went right over Newkirk's head.

"I don't know," Newkirk said with a laugh. "... I never realized how old I'm getting. I have one more year left and I'm out of school, I'm heading off to college and these guys are making jokes that I've never heard before."

Around 40 campers from the eighth grade all the way down to kindergarten gathered at the high school on Thursday for the final day of a three-day youth camp. Hosted by head coach Duane Maranda, the camp provides kids from different regions an opportunity to improve their skills prior to the start of the football season.

The campers practiced catching, route running and agility circuits at one of four different stations, splitting up to partake in different drills with counselors.

It's an opportunity for Maranda to teach the campers not only new techniques, but also discipline and motivation, a reason why he believes football can offer valuable life lessons.

"More than one kid came to me this week and said, 'geez coach, football is not easy,'" Maranda said. "And it's not an easy sport ... it's physical, so you get banged up ... but once a kid gets to that point where mentally he can have mind over matter and he can get through that, it teaches somebody how to overcome those obstacles."

It's something Newkirk also takes pride in because what he is teaching the younger kids is thought-provoking.

He remembers being in their same shoes not too long ago — playful, full of jokes and not the most focused — just like the campers who were too preoccupied with spraying water on each other to realize that their break was over.

"You kinda gotta get into their mind," Newkirk said about teaching, "... they might get distracted here or there."

But the extra effort proves worth it. It's neat, Newkirk said, to see the kids practicing the drills he showed them, to see them develop and progress as players, eventually running through the drills with the same fluidity and ease as the older high school players.

And despite only having the kids for a few days, Newkirk doesn't have to look far to see the results of his teaching.

"After we're done with practice at high school," he said, "they're up there practicing too. And you see them practicing and you're like, 'Wow. They really took a lot from the three days that we had.'"

As the campers gathered at midfield for camp's closing remarks, Maranda preached to them the importance of their studies, and that the time and effort they put in now, despite their young age, will impact their high school and even college years.

"For a lot of these kids, especially — even the seventh and eighth graders, they feel like, 'Oh college is a long way away,'" Maranda said.

But Newkirk knows that's not true.

College isn't far away, only a year for him. And it's days like Thursday where he's able to reflect and wonder where the time has gone.

"It reminds me of just, how it was back in the day," Newkirk said, recalling his years in youth football. " ... I don't know, it's pretty cool just seeing how they get older ... you come back and see them two years, three years from now and they're probably doing the same thing you're doing.

"And it's pretty cool just seeing them, little guys like this. And it's just funny. They're funny guys and I like working with them."