PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Baltimore Ravens plan to conduct a pair of youth football clinics at McDaniel College in June, according to team president Dick Cass.
One clinic will be focused entirely on high school players and the other one will be tailored to younger players. Ravens coach John Harbaugh and his assistant coaches will run one of the clinics, and players will attend the other one.
Meanwhile, the Ravens continue to work on their plans to hold three public practices. An announcement could happen within the next week.
The Ravens plan to hold a practice at M&T Bank Stadium, the Naval Academy and at a third site.
The Ravens decided to shift training camp to team headquarters in Owings Mills going forward after holding training camp in Westminster since their inaugural season in 1996 except for last summer following the NFL lockout.
The Ravens won the AFC North division title last season and advanced to the AFC championship game where they narrowly lost to the New England Patriots.
"I think nothing we’re going to do is going to replicate what we had at McDaniel College, which was an outstanding experience for our fans, but we had to balance engagement with the fans against getting ready for the season," Cass said. "We looked at the situation and compared the facilities and we talked about it a lot and studied it a lot. Our fans want us to win.
"Winning is what they really want us to do. Everything we do, we try to put ourselves in position to win. We thought we put ourselves in the best position to win if we put the training camp at our facility."
Harbaugh reiterated that connecting with the fans remains a high priority for the defending AFC North champions.
"The most important part of training camp is becoming the best football team you can become," Harbaugh said. "The best part of training camp is going over and hanging out with kids. That’s the best part of training camp. You get down on one knee, they look you in the eye, they tell you their name, what their favorite subject in school is, what their favorite sport is.
"We’re going to have two coaching clinics for youth players, high school and junior high and elementary school players, where we’re actually going to coach them up. We’re doing everything we can do to mitigate the fact that we don’t have training camp in Westminster. It’s important."
