But to advertise this camp as purely a football camp, free to all of its attendants, would be incorrect.

“For us, the football is kind of the draw,” Chum said. “It is a fun part of the camp, but really we’re only on the field for a couple of hours a day. What we do emphasize is the teamwork and the discipline, those elements of sports that help you be successful, and we transfer that into the classrooms, so in the classroom, if student athletes are having difficulty understanding concepts, we may have someone talk about it in the context of football.”

For Rivera, football enticed him to apply, but he quickly found that there was more to the camp than just the sport.

“We were looking for a football camp,” Rivera said. “We didn’t have money to go to a football camp because there were some very expensive camps. I found 4th and 1, and it was pretty great when I found it. I’m just in love with football, but it was also about the SAT. When I was there and didn’t know something, they were there to help me. They give you the skills to do what you need to do to get to college, and it was such a wonderful experience to actually see people who care about you from all across the country.”

From about 200 applicants to the Texas camp, 4th and 1 accepts roughly 40 students who show “promise,” according to Roberts.

“Our philosophy is that the top football players in the country are accounted for in the system because of their athletic talent,” Roberts says. “It’s the student athlete with the average football skills, average academic skills, so we’re searching for the “average”-type student, and with a disadvantaged background, whether it be coming from a single home or part of a minority group, we want those kids to come. We want the camp to serve as a boost that will propel them into their senior year and also into their undergraduate career.”

The camp day begins with football practice in the morning, followed by a variety of workshops and SAT preparation classes led by volunteers and teachers, many of whom are Harvard alums or undergraduates.

“It is amazing to see the students progress through the week each year,” says Daniel Adler ’10, SAT Director for 4th and 1. “Most of their parents aren’t as savvy about the college admissions process as most Harvard students’ parents are, so they really have to do a lot more stuff on their own. So it’s very fulfilling to try to help them out to try to give them some of the advantages that I was lucky to have growing up.”

INTO THE FUTURE

The camp offers not only guidance to its attendees, but a lifelong personal connection to 4th and 1’s directors and volunteers.

“Each counselor takes a handful of students that they’re supposed to keep in touch with during the year, but it’s a two-way street,” Adler said. “Sometimes the counselors could probably do a little better job, sometimes the students could do a little better job, but we’re working on keeping that communication open throughout the year so it’s not just a one-week camp and then they forget about it for the next 51 weeks, and then they show up again.”

The brains behind the program are also working to expand and improve upon 4th and 1 in hopes to better the effects of the curriculum on its campers.

“I introduced [the Jacksonville Jaguars] owners to the camp,” Adler said. “From day one, when I started talking to the Jaguars about this job, my boss [Tony Khan] came across 4th and 1, and he was immediately really interested. When I came on as a secondary thing to my real job, we had talked about trying to launch 4th and 1 here in Jacksonville.”

The plans for the camp in Jacksonville include practice SAT tests on Saturdays and team-donated tickets to the Jaguars’ games on Sundays for the campers. The hope is that these efforts would maximize participation throughout the year rather than limiting the program to a summer schedule.

The camp in Jacksonville will also be unique in that the team will actually provide all of the funds to sustain the program.