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Skyhawks Summer 2026 Recap
- Eric Tung
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
*Names have been changed to protect privacy.*
Ninety-one coaching sessions. Six cities. Ten different sports. That's the summer by the numbers. But numbers don't tell you about the four-year-old who freed all her friends from "jail" in one really amazing game, or the kid who refused a high five and then went back to fix it. So let's talk about what actually happened out there.
The Games That Shaped Summer
What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?
The skill: Dribbling, listening, and controlled sprinting
The undisputed champion of Summer 2026. Mr. Fox showed up in nearly half of all our sessions. No other game came close! Kids creep toward the coach, usually dribbling a ball, ask what time it is, and scatter when the answer is "lunchtime!"
Nora started July barely willing to speak above a whisper. Her coach noted that during one Mr. Fox round she "spoke loudly and clearly" for the first time. Two weeks earlier, the same child wouldn't do a drill without her dad standing next to her.
By August: "Nora listened super well today. She also started shooting from further out and was making her shots."
Her review of the whole thing? "I love the fox game."
Get Me Out of Jail
The skill: Shooting under pressure (with stakes)
Kids get "jailed" and can only be freed when a teammate makes a shot. It turns a shooting drill into a rescue mission, and it turns mildly interested five-year-olds into extremely motivated five-year-olds.
Jonah saved his teammates multiple times in one Foster City session. A few weeks later Sunny freed *all* of her friends in a single game AND learned to shoot overhand instead of underhand while she was at it.
The kids' verdict, delivered in unison: "My favorite moment was the jail game!"
Farmers and Foxes
The skill: Sprinting, dodging, and - a little surprisingly - sportsmanship!
Here's the best story of the summer, and it isn't about athletics at all.
After a Farmers and Foxes round in Redwood City, the coach asked everyone to give high fives. Owen refused, because Ezra had won instead of him. The coach reminded him about the sportsmanship talk from earlier that day.
Owen thought about it. Then he went and found Ezra.
"I want to give Ezra a high five now," he said. And they went back to being friends. That's the whole job, right there. That's why we at Skyhawks do what we do!
Two weeks later, when the session ended for good, Owen asked: "Why is this the last class?"
Touch the Fence
The skill: Rallying (tennis, and lots of it)
This was an instant hit at our San Bruno tennis camp. It's a rallying game, which means kids play it for twenty minutes without noticing they've hit two hundred balls.
One camper arrived skeptical and left converted: "This game is actually pretty fun."
By day four the request came unprompted every morning: "Can we play touch the fence?"
Scenes From Our Best Programs This Summer
What Parents & Kids Said
Our favorite part of the job:
"When class is done, the fun is over." — Jonah, Multi-Sport
"I liked everything times a billion." — Rudy, HoopsterTots
"I don't want to leave!" — two different kids, two different cities, same sentiment
"This was the most Harper has ever participated in the last 4 weeks, so thank you so much!" — Harper's grandma
"My boys always look forward to your class and are big Coach Dolphin fans!" — a Foster City mom
"I told Sunny that she'd start her new soccer season soon, and she said she hoped you'd be her coach." — Sunny's dad
And from our Google reviews this summer:
"This is our first year attending, and my girls said it's the best sports camp they have attended!"
"She was excited to go to the camp every single day." — volleyball parent
"I really didn't expect that she'd be learning some soccer fundamentals at that age, but the little drills and exercises really did make a difference." — grandparent of a 3-year-old
More Than Games
Every Skyhawks session opens with a life skill. We break down each day of the week into respect, sportsmanship, inclusion, teamwork, and leadership. That emphasis showed up in the reports in ways we didn't script:
- Damon noticed a teammate hanging back and offered to do the drill with her so she wouldn't be alone.
- Cruz shared his pool noodle without being asked.
- Karina was singled out for being "kind and gentle with the younger kids."
- One camper worked through a habit of touching people without asking, after a single honest conversation with a coach.
Our coaches rate every session on how well the kids absorbed the lesson. Summer averaged 4.1 out of 5 on sport skills and 4.0 out of 5 on life skills — and the coaches are told to be blunt here!
The Coaches Behind It
Coach Dolphin ran an absurd 64 of our 91 summer sessions, across six sports and five cities. Many of the breakthroughs in this post was one she noticed and wrote down.
Coach Ken owned tennis and pickleball and kept the Redwood City multi-sport camps moving all July.
Coach Star had a specialty this summer: quiet kids.
"Rex got out of his shell and told me his name!"
"Drew was talking to other kids today!"
"Damian started playing with us!"
Three different kids, three different weeks.
Coaches Flash, Flow, M, T, and Olive covered track, golf, baseball, and everything in between.
Thank you, all of you. It was a long summer and you showed up for every bit of it.
Looking Ahead to Fall
Fall registration is open across the Peninsula — San Mateo, Foster City, Redwood City, San Bruno, PJCC, Pacifica, and Burlingame.
Whether your kid spent all summer with us or has never touched a basketball, we'd love to have them.
See you out there.
— The Skyhawks Peninsula Team
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