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Why Every Gym Should Have a Summer Camp

Dan Cotton shares why summer camps have been a cornerstone of his program for decades — and why they should be a cornerstone of yours too.

Welcome back to another episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast! I’m your host, Dan Cotton, and today I’m flying solo to talk about one of my absolute favorite topics: summer camps. Before we dive in, make sure you head over to Facebook and join both Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners — two groups where gym owners, coaches, and industry professionals are connecting and sharing every day. You can also head over to NextGenOwners.com to learn about the academy and working directly with someone from my team on scaling and growing your gym. And if you’re looking for an immersive, in-person experience, check out one of our Cheer Biz Accelerator events — you’ll step inside a gym doing over a million dollars in revenue annually and get a deep dive into your business. Now, let’s talk camps.

Dan’s Camp Journey: From Special Needs Volunteers to Beach Boot Camps

Summer camps have been part of Dan Cotton’s life since high school. His very first camp experience was volunteering at a special needs camp, followed shortly after by a two-week intensive theater camp where his group learned an entire show and performed it for two days straight. That immersive experience — the friendships, the focus, the community — hooked him immediately.

When he got into coaching cheer in college, that camp energy carried right over. His first cheer camp was, in his own words, a full military boot camp experience. He showed up in his BDUs, burst through the dining hall doors, and had athletes doing push-ups, flutter kicks, and mountain climbers before they even unpacked their bags. Then they trained. Then they did fun dances. Then they sat in a circle and talked about how much they cared about each other. Then back to intensity. That roller-coaster approach, he says, is what makes camp so powerful — you can take people somewhere emotionally and athletically in a very compressed period of time.

From there, he was hooked. After leaving Emerald, he started running camps through his own gym, taking one team at a time to the Oregon coast — renting a house with a big enough field to stunt in, running boot camp on the beach, and making it an overnight experience where coaches brought their teams and everyone trained all day. That format grew and evolved over the years into what is now a cornerstone of the Oregon Dream Teams program. He says he cannot imagine their program without it.

Reason #1: Skill Progression

The number one reason Dan makes the case for summer camps is pure skill development. A well-structured three-and-a-half day camp with five hours of skill training per day gives you roughly 20 hours of focused, intensive work. To put that in context: most gyms get about 20 hours of real skill development across an entire month of regular practices in the summer — and that’s assuming you’re not constantly missing athletes to vacations and other summer activities.

Camp compresses all of that into a single, focused experience. You get to set goals, build and test stunt groups, try new things, learn new skills, and lay the foundation to launch into the season. You come out of camp ready for choreography, ready to tackle the year. There is simply no better environment for that kind of concentrated skill growth.

Reason #2: Team Building

The second reason is team building, and Dan is a strong advocate for the overnight format. When athletes are living together, sharing rooms, eating every meal together, and spending every waking hour as a group, something different happens. The bonds that form at camp are not the same as the ones formed during regular practice. In most programs, the only times athletes truly live together as a unit are Summit, Worlds, and camp. Camp is the one you control entirely — and you can design it intentionally.

He’s seen this firsthand in his own program — the difference between athletes who attended camp and those who didn’t is visible. The friendships forged at camp are next level. Dan also recommends building structured team-building activities into the camp schedule: goal-setting sessions, culture conversations, team challenges. At one venue his program used for years, they had a low ropes course where athletes had to lift each other through a spider web and work together on problem-solving challenges. That kind of experience teaches communication, trust, and collaboration in ways that stunting alone never will.

Reason #3: A Launching Point for the Season

Camp is also one of the best tools you have for setting the tone for your entire season. It gives you a dedicated window to establish expectations, identify where your stunt groups are, iterate on them in real time, and make sure your athletes and coaches are aligned before the season really starts. Your coaches should be deeply engaged — not necessarily leading the rotations, but watching, learning, communicating, and bonding with the athletes. That kind of intentional preparation makes a measurable difference by the time competition season arrives.

Reason #4: Outside Ideas and Fresh Voices

This one is close to Dan’s heart, and he acknowledges it might sound like a plug — but there’s a reason he started his camp company. Bringing in outside instructors exposes your athletes and your coaches to new techniques, new perspectives, and new ideas that your own staff may not have thought of. He recommends doing your homework on any provider you bring in: make sure they have solid progressions, they prioritize athlete safety, and they understand what your program is looking for. But once you’ve vetted the right people, step back and let them coach.

At Oregon Dream Teams, his coaches do not run the instructional rotations during camp. They’re present and engaged, but they’re there to observe and learn — watching how outside coaches communicate techniques, break things down, and connect with athletes in a different way. Dan says he’s become a far better coach because of the time he’s spent surrounded by great minds in this industry. And the ego check matters: leave it at the door, let the instructors do their job, and absorb everything you can. Even if something doesn’t fit your style perfectly, the exposure is worth it.

Reason #5: The Memories Last a Lifetime

Last but absolutely not least: the memories. Dan has staff members today who were athletes in his program at 16 years old and still talk vividly about specific moments from camp. These are core memories — the kind that shape who a person becomes, not just as an athlete, but as a human being. Camp gives your athletes the experience of being part of something bigger than themselves. That is the heartbeat of what cheer is trying to accomplish in the first place.

It’s Not Too Late — But Start Planning Now

If you’re listening to this in mid to late June and you don’t have a camp on the books yet, Dan is honest with you: it might be tight this year. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible — there are great providers out there, and even bringing someone into your gym for an in-gym camp experience is a worthwhile option. Dream Camps, his company, is actively expanding overnight camp offerings to more locations, including Oregon, Missouri, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and Florida, with more on the way.

If you genuinely can’t make it happen this summer, don’t wait. Start planning for next year right now. Camp companies start booking well in advance and prefer to know their summers a full year ahead of time. Get something on the books, figure out the logistics, and build it into your program. On the financial side, he notes that many gyms have their athletes pay camp fees directly, or they charge up with a modest profit margin built in. Either way, camps don’t have to be a cost center for your program — they can be a revenue line.

Dan’s bottom line: summer camps are the best money his gym spends, full stop. The skill gains, the team chemistry, the season momentum, the new ideas, and the memories they create are worth every dollar and every hour of planning. If you don’t have one, make a plan to change that.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast! If you’re not already part of our community, head over to Facebook and join the Cheer Gym Owners group as well as All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners — both are incredible spaces where gym owners, coaches, and cheer industry professionals come together to connect, learn, and support each other. We’ll catch you on the next episode!