SALISBURY — The Salisbury Community Park looked a little more like Rocky Top on Thursday, as the University of Tennessee Lady Vols softball team hosted a softball camp for local players.
Emma Clarke, the West Rowan High School softball phenom and junior infielder at UTK, is the primary reason the camp happened. Since she started at the university, her uncle and former softball coach, Jimmy Greene, has worked with UTK softball coach Karen Weekly to bring the team’s camp to Rowan County.
Finally, this summer worked out. Greene, Clarke and many other family members worked under a tight timeline to get the camp together, making the event a full family affair.
Within 24 hours of posting the announcement, the camp was sold out, with over 300 players across both age sessions signed up to attend. Players from around the region, including Davie, Davidson and Stanley counties, filled the roster for the camp. Some contacted Greene in disbelief that the actual Volunteer team was coming to the camp.
“This is exciting. They’re getting the best coaching available,” Greene said. “We’ve got a great turnout, and it’s been greatly successful. We just have to keep everybody cool, hydrated and safe. That’s the main goal.”
Karen Weekly and her husband, Ralph Weekly, a former UTK softball coach and two-time Olympic gold-medal softball coach, have run these camps together for years. This is their first time hosting a camp in Salisbury, but they are always excited to see young players interested in the sport.
“This gives us a chance to watch our players run the clinics and watch younger players in a great atmosphere learn from them,” Ralph Weekly said.
When the day came, the fields at Salisbury Community Park were filled with young players and UTK coaching staff and players ready to practice their skills. Younger players started the day, with a break in the middle for autographs and photos.
Despite the wealth of softball history at the autographing session, Clarke’s line lasted longer than the rest. Karen Weekly recognized that Clarke is a local celebrity in the softball community.
“Emma’s such a hometown hero and somebody that these young girls look up to so much,” Karen Weekly said.
The camp filled five fields across the park, with different drills run at each. The players rotated through each drill, asking questions about techniques and meeting the UTK coaching staff and players.
After decades of running camps across the country, Karen Weekly emphasized the importance of showing young players the sport’s peak and giving them role models they can relate to.
“You just see how these girls light up, especially when they see our players and how much they look up to them. I think about when I was their age, we didn’t have softball at the level we have it now, so my role models in ball sports like this were baseball players. It’s just so important to get yourself into spaces like these, where you can work with these girls and you see what a difference it makes for them, how much it means to them,” Karen Weekly said.
