Some 11 years ago, Zach Smalls, a Tacoma police officer and former wide receiver at Washington State University, was approached by four high-school football players and asked if he would help train them for the upcoming season.

The four players got a good workout - a real good workout. They were leaner, stronger, more fit, more durable than they had ever been, (one of them, Jamel Dowling, now plays for the Arizona Cardinals. Another, Joe Ruben will be in an NFL camp this summer).

Word began spreading about their mentor Smalls - the combined forces of his energy, focus, drive, understanding and (most of all) enthusiasm - and he began taking on more and more kids each summer, seeing the workout morph into a full-blown boot camp. He eventually gave this program a name, which has become synonymous with youth fitness in Tacoma: Z-Speed.

This week there are more than 100 participants at the 23-day camp at Mt. Tahoma and Stadium High Schools. Their ages range from 14-23, and they all willingly throw themselves into the daily sessions that include stretching, sprinting, running through and around rope ladders, cones and other contraptions with increasing speed and duration to enhance their strength, quickness, cardiovascular endurance and agility. And there are few other by products: confidence, citizenship - even civil comportment. As an example, one new Z-Speeder was a bit too aloof with respect to the way he addressed a staff member who was handing out t-shirts. He was not given his t-shirt until he managed after three tries to dig for enough common courtesy to ask for it properly.

Smalls has networked, co-opted, partnered and grown Z-Speed into a now full-blown organization.

The most impressive part of the group is the dedicated staff of a dozen or so teachers, coaches and even a former Olympic sprinter, all of whom Smalls has enlisted to lend their experience and personal dedications to fitness to his cause.

Not that it takes a whole lot of persuading. Hang out with Smalls for about 10 seconds as he describes his program and you will find yourself asking, “What can I do?”

The Blue Thunder, who perform at Seahawks games, performed at the opening night of the camp last week.

Blue Thunder leader, Keith Rousu of Woodinville, says Smalls, who is a season-ticket holder, approached him at a game and asked him to perform at his camp.

“He told me about it and it was like, we’ll be there. Then when you see a bunch of kids like this that come out here in the summer to work hard doing something that is not that fun, you’ve got to be pretty impressed with them.”

The Z-Speed staff is an eclectic group with two things in common - they love to coach kids and they like Smalls and his vision for the youth that attend the camps.

“You see those big containers for the food drive and the book drive out there in the middle of the field?” says Vern Chandler, one of Smalls’ longtime assistants.

“That’s part of this, too. He stresses to them the importance not only of being as strong as they can be, mentally and physically, but of doing something with it. Share it, use it in positive ways.”

Former Olympic sprinter Laura James, who competed in the 1972 Munich games, is a new member of Smalls’ staff. The two met recently at Stadium High School, where one of Smalls’ two daughters, Hayley, is a student-athlete. James is the track coach there.

“Since I left competitive track, I was pretty much just looking after my own kids,” says James, who might be the first major track-and-field nobility they have ever encountered. “I had heard about this and I’ll tell you it is really an experience.”

Albert Green III, the camp’s equivalent of a drill sergeant, as he barks commands to the troops on the field (where no one is really afraid of him), has been working with Smalls for six years.

Green’s regular job is with Catholic Community Services, and he sees a connection between its mission of keeping families together and Z-Speed.

“They (the camp participants) are learning responsibility here. And that extends way past whatever is happening here today on this field. It’s something they take with them back to their teams in the fall and to their families at home.”

Mike and Mandy Kraft, teachers and coaches in Puyallup, have been with Smalls for several years. This is the first year that Mandy has worked at the camp as an expectant mother - but at two months pregnant, she is not slowing down yet, as she runs with the kids through many of the drills.

“You just love what this is all about,” she says. “These kids make a choice to come out here and do this stuff - and it is not easy. They are very motivated and that makes them great to work with.”

Smalls himself is proud of the staff he has, a collection of teachers who share his fundamental view of the camp. Marlene Yamaguchi has been with the program for six years. He will point out Bryce Douglas over there, who played basketball at the University of Puget Sound and is going to leave for a coaching position at the University of San Diego later this summer. Smalls will tell you about Mailani Marquez, who Smalls saw playing basketball one day and told about the camp, where she has gone from former participant to staffer. Tony Benson comes down from his Buckley gym, Northwest Fitness Zone, to lend a hand. Dominque Hardeman, a probation officer who met Smalls while running steps at Stadium High School. Michele Burge, the Wilson High School basketball coach, has joined the staff.

Smalls, as loquacious a man as you will ever meet, is focused and intense during the camp, moving around the groups with a deft combination of prodding, encouragement and appreciation.

This is his show, his baby.

“He always has a lot of enthusiasm, he has that normally,” says his 14-year-old, Avery. “But when the camp is about to start each summer, I would say he is, yes, very excited.”

Janell Jordan, an All-Narrows League basketball player at Foss High School, has attended the camp for five years.

“He (Smalls) is like my second father. I love this camp. It is really challenging, but he makes it something you just want to do, and you can feel a huge difference between the opening of the camp and the end,” says Jordan.

Kristie Milles was told about the camp by a neighbor. After her two daughters, Jessyca and Dannylle, and son, Wyatt, experienced the camp, she became a volunteer administrator and has remained one for the past five years.

Milles pretty much says it all.

“Zach is empowering these kids.”