Youth/High School Soccer
Delco Christian camp connects young soccer players to a higher calling
Campers at the upper campus of Delaware County Christian School during a soccer camp last week did drills, stretches, agility training and scrimmages common in summer soccer camps around the region, but keeping with the faith focus of the school’s athletic and academic curriculum, the focus was on more than just soccer.
Delco Christian varsity boys head coach Rob Atkins, who also teaches Bible at the upper school, has run the camp for more than a decade as an outreach to the younger kids in the school’s elementary school and the community as a way to build the future of the program, which won a PIAA Class A state championship in 2023 and made it to the state final in 2025.
With the FIFA World Cup going on in Philadelphia and around cities in North America, Atkins had the added opportunity this year of partnering with the Delaware Valley Eagles, a Brookhaven-based ministry connected to Missionary Athletes International. Through the partnership, campers were visited by players from the Orlando and Lexington, Ky. chapters of the ministry. The players, who play high-level youth, college and amateur soccer, worked individually with the kids and also shared stories of their life and soccer journeys.
Daniel Leo, who grew up in the United Arab Emirates and played collegiately at Liberty University and Cedarville University, shared his story with the campers after lunch on the last day. The recent college grad joined the Orlando Eagles staff full time earlier this summer.
“As an athlete there’s gonna be hard things that happen like injuries, things that go wrong in school, relationships, whatever it is, but none of that will can bring you comfort,” Leo said. “There’s really high highs and really low lows for athletes, and when the lows are low the only thing that’s ever brought me comfort is my faith.”
The Orlando Eagles made a couple visits to the camp in Newtown Square during the week and players from the Lexington Eagles also visited. Mike McFadden of the Del Val Eagles and intern Judah Gray, who played at The Christian Academy and is now at Grove City College, were part of the camp the whole week.
“The game has been redeemed for me as a believer, it’s no longer about just myself, it’s about praising the Lord,” said McFadden, who was a standout player at La Salle College High School in the early ’90s and has coached in the area for more than two decades. “God gave us these skill sets, he gave us these talents, gave us these tools that we can raise to share the gospel, but he also gave us this game to use it as a vehicle to create relationships. I couldn’t be happier to call that my job, the work that he’s given me.”
Campers at the camp also spent time doing traditional summer camp activities like swimming, archery, climbing and more at the school’s lower campus in Devon. Varsity players from the school’s District 1 champion and state runner up also participated, including rising senior Justin Ma, who scored one of the Pennsylvania high school goals of the season in the program’s first regular season win over rival Faith Christian Academy in four years in the fall.
“Just to have like-minded guys that are of the same mind when it comes to things that DC values has been a blessing,” said Atkins, who was named the Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches Association independent boys coach of the year in 2025. “The gospel is at the center, but we love soccer, and they’ve been able to help bring that. It’s been a special treat having Orlando Eagles here, and then the group from Lexington that was made up of a high school boys tour from all over the country that met in Philadelphia.”
In addition the excitement of a World Cup summer and the new friendships, the legacy of the camp for Atkins has been the relationships he’s built with future players.
“I can get to know some of these younger kids that are coming up and they get to know me,” Atkins said. “Eventually they get up onto the upper campus in middle school, and they know who Coach Atkins is, because of this camp.”
