Syracuse police partner with Syracuse football for PAL summer camp

Syracuse police highlighted a growing partnership with the Syracuse University football team as families signed up for free PAL summer camps that run throughout July. The effort tied youth sports to public safety in a city where officers have been trying to build trust with children long before school starts again.

The Syracuse Police Athletic/Activities League has been part of that approach since the city launched a new PAL program in 2021. Registration for the Syracuse chapter has been open for children ages 6 to 13, giving families a low-cost option at a time when many summer programs fill quickly across Central New York.

At the original PAL launch, Police Chief Kenton Buckner and Jimmy Oliver said the league was meant to build relationships and help temper juvenile crime. Oliver, who was named the department’s first director of community engagement in December 2020, has become the public face of that effort, and his role has continued to shape youth programming that keeps officers in a non-enforcement setting with children and parents.

The football partnership adds a recognizable Syracuse name to that model. For families, that can mean more than a photo opportunity: it gives the department another way to draw children into structured activities that mix athletics, mentoring and positive contact with law enforcement. Syracuse police have used that same formula in other programs, including a basketball clinic and a S.T.E.A.M. summer camp, as part of a broader push to show up in neighborhoods through recreation as much as patrols.

The department’s summer outreach has become an annual feature. A 2025 Syracuse police camp announcement said registration was open for free summer camps throughout July, and Oliver said, “We look forward to offering our free summer camps every year.” That steady schedule matters in Syracuse, where summer can leave working parents scrambling for safe, supervised options and where neighborhood relationships with police often hinge on who officers meet outside a call for service.

The timing also fits Syracuse football’s place in the city’s civic life. The program arrives in a place where SU football carries more than scoreboard weight, especially after the 1970 Syracuse 8 protest, when Black players challenged how the university treated them and reshaped the conversation around the team’s role in the community.

For Onondaga County families, the message behind the camp is clear: this is not just about football. It is about putting officers, athletes and kids in the same space, then using that space to make summer feel safer, more familiar and more connected.