New York Giants safety Tyler Nubin’s return to St. Charles North “A big success”

Tyler Nubin liked a lot of things about his first-ever football camp that he hosted from Friday to Sunday.

From getting to interact with kids of all ages and share his love of football, to reuniting to some of his old coaches and teammates, the New York Giants safety was more than happy to be back at St. Charles North.

His favorite part though? Probably getting to wear a whistle around his neck for the first time.

“Being on this side of the whistle is amazing,” Nubin said jokingly to St. Charles North football coach Rob Pomazak. “This is a lot of power right here.”

Around 85 kids from first to eighth grade attended the first two days of the camp Friday and Saturday, which consisted of multiple drills including agility, ball security and tackle drills with flags, introducing the kids to multiple positions over the two two-hour sessions.

During the sessions, he also made sure to keep it fun. He ended off the first day of the camp with a 30-minute Q&A with the kids, and also handed out gift bags that included a t-shirt, a drawstring bag and a signed poster.

“It’s great to see Tyler in his element when he’s working with kids,” said Pomazak, whose two daughters took part in the camp. “This was just one of those weekends where you reflect a bit on a long body of work. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and this is kind of why you do it.”

One of the campers there was Michael Cutone, who’s set to play his first season of football with the Aurora Gators under his dad Josh Cutone, a former coach on the Oswego East football team for 10 years. Josh Cutone, who had heard of Nubin but didn’t know him, heard about the camp from a former coach, and knew that it was going to be a great camp for his son to attend.

“You can just tell that the atmosphere around the camp that comes with a that level of a different player is just something you can’t find anywhere else,” Josh Cutone said. “It’s a really special thing, and nobody wants to put out a bad coaching point from an NFL player. It’s really cool, and you can just tell that the energy of the camp is a but higher than some of the others that we have attended.”

The final day was filled with around 35 high schoolers, mainly from St. Charles North. The camp was more position-focused, with the players splitting into their respective positions for drills before coming together for a 7-on-7 to end the day.

“It was definitely a lot more like teaching and commanding, trying to get better and using their knowledge of the game to pour into these kids,” Nubin said. “And they received it super well and were super locked in and soaking up as much as they could, and they were just awesome.”

The only hiccup Nubin said happened with the camp was the high temperatures that plagued the weekend. But even with the heat advisory, he said that the switch from St. Charles North’s football field to the indoor Sportsplex for the final two days went extremely smooth.

“Even though we had to pivot and move indoors, everything just worked,” Nubin said. “Every single camp ran super smooth, everybody was flowing through and the kids were having fun. They came out and made it go to. And it was pretty easy to keep it going when they were pushing through.”

Nubin hopes to continue coming back home to St. Charles to host the camp annually, and also hopes that it can grow further past the St. Charles community to the neighboring communities.

“This definitely has potential to become a real big thing,” Nubin said. “With the help of coach Pomzak, having a camp that’s well organized and well run that the kids get a lot out of, I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to come back every year. I definitely want to reach as many kids as I can and keep them excited and keep them wanting to come back every year.”

And it’s an event that Pomazak hopes the Nubin will continue as a pro in the league, and maybe even afterwards as a coach with the North Stars.

“The vision of the program is to connect the community with the game of football, and I can’t think of something that is better than this,” Pomazak said. “Friday nights are a community event, and any time that we can extend that beyond the gates and go into the summer or winter, it’s very ideal. And this is just a quintessential part of that.”