When Dr. Will Hayes passed away in April 2001, at the age of 86, high school sports lost a pioneer... the innovator and forerunner of the current summer football camp. In 1965 Dr. Hayes founded the Quarterback and Receiver Camp, which since its inception has taught the intricacies of football to more than 37,500 high school players. Not surprisingly, many went on to college and pro success, including NFL receiving great and Hall of Famer, James Lofton and Heisman Trophy winner and current San Diego Chargers quarterback Doug Flutie.

Dick Flutie, Doug's father, remembers the impact QBR Camp had on his three sons, who attended the New Jersey camps in the late ‘70’s. “It was completely different from anything before it,” he recalls. “It was the best teaching at the quarterback and receiving positions of anything I had heard of and personally saw. Most of the football camps at that time got pro athletes to sign autographs and kids had the thrill of being with an athlete they saw on television, but teaching-wise they got nothing out of it. It was
at Quarterback and Receiver Camp where
Doug was recognized for his ability to throw on the run.”

In its first year, the camp was for quarterbacks only, as Dr. Hayes started it to give his son, Laird, some advanced quarterback instruction experience as a high school sophomore in Santa Barbara, California. “At that first camp,” Laird says, “there were 10 kids, including the late Bob Chandler, who was one of the great all-time receivers at the University of Southern California Trojans followed by a stellar career with the Oakland Raiders. Dad quickly figured out quarterbacks needed someone to throw to and the next year it became the Quarterback and Receiver Camp.”

A promising quarterback of that era, Paul McDonald, went on to an eight-year career in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns and the Dallas Cowboys, but not before attending QBR Camp in 1975. “At that time, it was the only quarterback camp,” he explains. “It was a chance to measure myself against everybody else out there. Plus, it wasn’t just throwing... we learned routes, coverages, defenses and reads. The only thing the camp couldn’t do was inject fast-twitch muscle genes into a slow, skinny kid from Covina, California!”

“When Dad started QBR Camp, there were no other camps like it,” adds Dr. Laird Hayes, QBR Camp President, who is also the men's soccer coach at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California and an NFL Side Judge since 1995. “Dad knew that the key to a successful camp was to teach the fundamentals and to repeat them over and over. Every camper was treated the same, from the blue chipper to the beginner."

The Original Camp Doctor Dr. Will Hayes 1915 - 2001