Robert Sapp has spent more than six decades teaching and coaching baseball and while the sport is different from the one he played in the early 1960s at the University of Georgia, some things haven’t changed.

“I still enjoy working with the kids,” said Sapp, who was wrapping up his 44th season of running the Robert Sapp Baseball Camps last Friday at the Richmond Hill Recreation Department fields. “I love the game and I love giving back to it.”

To say Sapp is a baseball lifer is an understatement. The native of Brunswick and Glynn Academy graduate owns over 1,000 wins as a college and high school coach.

After graduating from UGA in 1963 Sapp went into coaching, making his mark at Middle Georgia College (1976-1996) where he won four national junior college championships, finished as a runner-up twice and two other times took Warriors teams to the Final Four.

The success at Middle Georgia earned him the head coaching gig at Georgia for three seasons.  Including head coaching stints at Central Gwinnett and Berkmar high schools where he started his coaching career, Sapp compiled an overall 1,041-293-1 record. He was also an assistant at Georgia Southern in 1971-72.

But while he retired from coaching Sapp continued running his camps. He has seven camps each summer with Richmond Hill being his final stop.

“I’ve been coming to Richmond Hill for 25 years,” said Sapp who had 115 youngsters at this year’s camp. “I don’t see fundamentals as much, especially in younger kids, so what we want them to do is let them go home with better fundamental skills.”

Sapp’s camps are not a baby-sitting service as they run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and other than a lunch break there’s little if any idle time. Ages for the camp are 7 to 14.

“We’re not a trophy camp,” Sapp said. “We stress fundamentals every morning and we play games in the afternoon with instruction. By Friday these kids are improved and have learned a number of things.”

Other camps are held at Flowery Branch, Warner Robins, Dublin, St. Simons Island, Brunswick and Thomson. The Brunswick camp, he said, had 165 kids.

The explanation for how he got into the camp business was a simple one.

“We had a growing family and I needed the extra income,” said Sapp who was coaching at Middle Georgia at the time. “We use only adult coaches and most of these guys have been with me a long time.”

Sapp had three camps his first year, one in Gwinnett County where he had coached, another in Clayton County and one in Brunswick. His two most notable campers over the years have been Adam Wainwright and Jeff Francoeur although many have gone on to play in college.

The camp at Richmond Hill came about as the result of Sapp buying a house in Richmond Hill.

“One of the biggest expenses is housing my coaches for the week,” Sapp said. “I bought a little house here over by the railroad tracks so I had a place for them to stay during the week.

“One of the things about Richmond Hill kids is they’re a little more disciplined and better behaved than other places we go,” Sapp said. “We’ve always had good support here.”

A major emphasis in his camps, Sapp said, is to make sure the kids are having fun and enjoying themselves.

“My motto has always been: it’s ‘Play Ball’ and not ‘Work Ball,’” Sapp said. “We’ve got to have fun in this game and I’m afraid we’re getting away from that. They play a lot of games and the kids are getting a little tired of it by the end of summer and coaches are probably putting too much stress on this and that.

“We work on throwing a lot, too. Kids have a bad habit of throwing:  they have their elbows down instead of getting it up above their shoulder and getting some extension. You can’t throw a ball very hard if you can’t get an extension.”