A free youth football skills clinic will be held at the Al Trione Sports Complex on Saturday, July 6, hosted by a Daphne Trojan football alum currently playing for the TCU Horned Frogs, Trent Battle. The event is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is open to boys and girls aged 5-14.

A member of TCU’s 2022 team that went to the College Football Playoff Championship, it will be a full-circle moment for Battle who grew up going to similar youth camps hosted by Daphne alumni who reached the NFL.

“We want to just be able to give back to the communities that helped raise us and put us in these positions that we're in, especially because NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) is becoming a thing. We're not doing this for the money. We're not doing this to get paid or anything, we're doing this because now we have the platform and the ability to give back and do those things,” Battle said in a July 2 interview. “When I was younger, you'd see TJ (Yeldon) and Ryan Anderson and Michael Pierce doing these camps. That was huge for us to see, for me to see that. It was cool and I was like, ‘I want to be able to do that, do the things that they did.’”

Not the only Trojan set to be on hand

He will indeed follow in those former Trojans’ steps alongside some of his former teammates and fellow Daphne alumni.

“The campers can expect to have a great time. They can expect to learn football from some of the other Daphne alumni that are playing college ball right now,” Battle said. “I’m planning on having other alumni such as Tyler Bradley, Veontai Williams, Devery Smith, Stacey Boykins, Hayden McLaurin; some of those guys that are playing college ball kind of somewhere around the area. They're still doing it right now and it means a lot for them to come out and help do this with me.”

With some assistance from current Trojan head football coach Kenny King, Battle was able to put the finishing touches on the camp and was already looking forward to it. However, he was most excited to share details on things not every fan notices.

“Going into this my biggest thing is like, yeah, I want to teach the kids football and I want to show them the effort side of it and help them with some of the technique side. But at the same time, I want to give back. I want all the kids to have fun, I want it to be free and I want them to get out, get active, and everything like that,” Battle said. “(Coach King) has been a really big help in all this, him and his wife (Strelitzia), they've helped me establish getting sponsors. Him, my mom, my family have helped getting sponsors for this camp and having people give donations and everything just to help all the kids have a really good time.”

Battle still learning after all this time

Even though he’s been playing football for so long already, Battle is still learning new things on the football field since transitioning from a quarterback to a running back and special teams ace. While he was kept off of special team units as Daphne’s quarterback, Battle quickly adapted to his new role that sometimes falls under a different category.

“It's those kinds of thankless jobs that people like a regular fan watching might not realize, but when you pin a team back on their 5-yard line, the pressure puts in the quarterback. And then psychologically, he's overcompensating trying to make that throw, and then all of a sudden, it's a pick,” Battle said. “You learn that those thankless jobs are everywhere on the field, and you learn how those guys feel, the big guys that are doing jobs that nobody's seeing. It's way more important than you would think.”

However, those thankless jobs have come through in box scores, as TCU coaches discovered a trend between the recent Big 12 Conference champions.

“You steal possessions in those (special teams) roles. Our coaches even brought up how they did a study and they went back almost five years and saw that each Big 12 championship team has won at least five or six games by one possession. So that's over 50% of their games that were won by one possession,” Battle said. “Those are moments in the game that I think are what separates some teams from being good to being great, is they take not just offense and defense seriously, but special teams just as important.”

Horned Frogs trying to recreate national championship blueprint

He understood that full-team effort was part of what helped the Horned Frogs reach the national championship only a couple of seasons ago. That has also set the stage for TCU’s hopeful return to the last game of the year.

“Ever since Coach (Sonny) Dykes and them came here that was what they put on the board was the national championship. And we almost didn't believe them when they first got here, and then we popped up and we were in it,” Battle said. “It's one of those things, it's like an addiction, you want it again. You don't want just that one taste and then let it slip away. We've been there, we know how we got there, and now we're trying to replicate every single thing we can every day to try and get back to that.”

It all started somewhere

Battle also knows that he wouldn’t have had a chance to live his dreams had it not been for everyone he met in the Daphne community.

“Daphne poured so much into me and like the saying goes, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’” Battle said. “I feel like it took everybody that was a part of my journey growing up in Daphne, anybody who I had any type of association with, they helped me so much in developing the person I am today and being able to give that back and pour into the kids now means a lot to me.”