IMG Academy — Local services in South Bradenton

Lots of promises, bragging, and great sales pitches to get you to sign up for camp @ 2600 a week but no delivery of ANY/all the amazing things they say they do at this camp.I was told that the coaches would elevate my sons game and have him playing with kids at his level but that never happened. This was a glorified daycare with coaches that did not care about the campers and a lot of the staff seemed to hold animosity toward the campers. Gatorade promised all over the grounds was a flop. Many coolers were broken, empty, or extremely watered down.

My 14 year old son spent 4 days there(we pulled him out after being being belittled and yelled at by staff to the point of crying on the phone to us for 45 minutes). He has gone to other camps with no issue of needing to be picked up early and always is able to connect with the staff, so seeing this from him was very alarming. When my husband arrived to pick up my son, he witnessed a staff member ripping into a child for hitting his shoes together to get clay off of them. The kid apologized but the staff member kept riding him about the noise he made. He also witnessed a camper requesting staff to come to the dorm because another camper was feeling ill, the staff member blew him off and said he would be up "later- I'm on lunch." Seeing this first hand confirmed why my son was so upset by the way staff interacts with the campers. Apparently apologizing isn't good enough for these people and you better not dare ask for help or you will be given the "I dont care" treatment.

We were told did not need to bring equipment. Coaches brought a few small footballs a few of the days then called out the campers for not bringing their balls to practice. One of the campers had to go find a full size football for "practice." They also were not properly warmed up before throwing. Weight training was a joke, all this amazing equipment at the facility but campers are not allowed to use them. App for communication and videos from the coaching staff of all the great training they are receiving was a joke, one day of a few videos posted.

If you have money to waste, don't mind having your child get ZERO benefit of the sport they are there for, and like people yelling at your children to the point of tears- this is the...

This camp was one of the worst camps I have ever taken my children to. From the outset when my son was stuck alone the entire first day, was unable to eat dinner due to food allergies and nobody to help explain what was safe, to the improper rooming with kids NOT in his sport, things started off poorly. I was sold on the promise of him rooming with other football players but, instead, he had one person from golf and another from basketball. Neither of which were there the first day until right at bedtime.

And then got worse.

The breakthrough sessions were terrible - with the coach literally telling my son in the first session that he was there to get paid and did not care about him. My son was there to learn how to be a better QB and not once did he EVER receive any instructions in his breakthrough session to that end. Instead, the coach spent his time teaching receivers how to run routes and ignored the QBs entirely, or discussing who was the fastest receiver, or flat out ignoring the entire group and, instead, playing on his phone.

The football sessions were also a joke, and my son only learned what little he did learn when OTHER KIDS showed him some things. As a QB, he was forced to be a receiver during the scrimmages, with other receivers being randomly forced to be QB. He learned absolutely nothing, never got any reps at the QB spot, and the entire camp was a massive waste of money. Then my son got injured the evening prior to his last day and he could barely move his arm. When he reported his injury to the coach the next morning, instead of sending him to the Sports Center to get help, the coach told him to play through the pain. This is not the Superbowl, this is a 12-year-old with a strained shoulder. The response was outrageous but fit in exactly with the disaster that...

IMG Academy hosted the Under the Lights national flag football championship this weekend. The good-fields were in good shape and schedules seemed to roll right along. Unfortunately, that was about all the good. Parking and traffic were poorly managed. Many, including most of our party, sat an hour waiting to get in. Those delays resulted in players being dumped in the side of the road and weaving through traffic to try and reach scheduled games. Many near misses were observed while we sat and sat. Direction to parking was minimal and what staff was posted tended to be unhelpful and extremely rude, as if our being there was a personal affront. To further compound the misery, IMG chose to close the exit gates on Sunday, so each car had to beseech permission to depart from guards that were surly at best, crude and insulting at worst. For thousands of fans and participants, two small trailers (one of which flooded) and a couple of port-a-John’s were provided as facilities and those were positioned as far as humanly possible from the fans and fields. This despite a map provided that showed facilities more widely available. Top that with sparse options for food/drink also positioned far from the action, it made for a miserable all-day event on a blazing Florida day. Despite all the good things I’ve heard or read about IMG, it wouldn’t have been possible to feel less welcome to an...