Seibald launches new summer camp venture

When Bernie Tessler, chief executive officer of Gold Coast Sports Academy and its parent company, Oasis Children’s Services, and his Executive Vice President Michael Schlank, were looking for someone to team up with for a new lacrosse camp, for them there was no one better than former Hewlett High School star Max Seibald.

“Our goal is to find people, role models who exemplify who we are and Max is one of those quality people,” Tessler said. “He is not just an athlete. He is going to business school and he cares about kids.”

Seibald, who helped lead the Bulldogs to the lacrosse team’s first-ever conference championship and county title in 2004, and then went on to win the Tewaaraton Trophy (the equivalent of the Heisman Trophy) in men’s lacrosse at Cornell, is partnering with Gold Coast to launch Max Seibald’s Lacrosse Academy this summer at four locations, including Harbor Links Athletic Fields in Port Washington.

“For me it is an opportunity to spread the games in the areas where the camps are and to share my perspective and values,” said Seibald, who was inducted in to the Hewlett-Woodmere Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012.

The camp is for boys and girls 6 to 15, at the beginner and intermediate levels of playing lacrosse. It’s planned to be structured with learning skills during the first half of the day, some free time and lunch, then scrimmages where the camper-athletes will apply the techniques they learned earlier in the day.

“I think that this particular Gold Coast Sports Academy camp will allow the camper-athlete to focus on something they are passionate in,” said Schlank, who is somewhat of a camper for life as his parents met at a sleep away camp in 1969 and he met his wife, while they were working at a summer camp.

Tessler began about 17 years ago with two divisions of Oasis camps for homeless and at-risk children. He said his company doesn’t buy camps, they create them. Also under the Gold Coast banner are boys’ and girls’ basketball programs, soccer and tennis. The hoops camp is being run by Karl-Anthony-Towns, the NBA Rookie of the Year, and the soccer program is headed by Josy Altidore.

Seibald has been running lacrosse club teams in New York City, is involved in a non-profit organization CityLax that introduces lacrosse to the city’s public schools and underserved communities, plays for the Boston Cannons in Major League Lacrosse and is continuing his education by attending New York University’s Stern School of Business.

“We want the kids to learn the skills and experience the fun of the game,” Seibald said.

To learn more, go to goldcoastsportsacademy.com.