Nike Sports Camp instructs local soccer youth

Nike Sports Camp came to Tehachapi for a three-day soccer training session last week, providing premier instruction to Tehachapi youth athletes.

The camp, known officially as The Soccer Academy, featured head trainer and camp director Hormoz Tabrizi, who has been a senior staff coach for the organization for 25 years. Tabrizi was a member of the Iranian Junior National Team, an All-American in high school and college and was drafted professionally by the New York Cosmos, playing with the legendary Pelé.

Overall, Tabrizi played 12 years professionally in San Diego, Philadelphia and Detroit while also playing professionally in Mexico. He was selected as the MVP in the World Indoor Championships in Mexico City, a league that included world-renowned players such as Diego Maradona. Currently, Tabrizi travels and trains extensively in the United States and abroad, primarily in the Southern California Area.

Tabrizi, with the help of THS Varsity Girls Soccer Coach Tyson Kingsbury and long-time Tehachapi coach Bob Papac, guided the Tehachapi High soccer players through a host of drills and training at Meadowbrook Park, while also doing a special training session with the younger Gryphons Club soccer squads.

The training sessions are the result of a close friendship between the Tehachapi High soccer program and The Soccer Academy, which has been in existence for more than 20 years. The Soccer Academy was originally founded in 1973 by the head coaches of UCLA and UCSB.

The connection between The Soccer Academy and Tehachapi was forged in the mid-1990s when then-THS coaches Tom Franchere and Dave Goodell would regularly send hopeful future players to the academy at Westmont

College to improve their soccer skills and that of the THS

soccer team, overall. During this time, they

were joined by THS junior varsity coach Bob Papac,

who has continued the tradition and now works with The Soccer Academy each year in Tehachapi and beyond. Papac extends his reach by running the California Camp at Cate School, located in the hills overlooking Carpinteria. Prior to Cate School, the camp was hosted for many years at

Westmont College and Cal State Channel Islands and attracts future athletes from the ages of 8-17 from all around the world every year.

For more information on The Soccer Academy, you can visit www.ussportscamps.com, select soccer for a sport and then select Carpinteria for the city.