Cage camp helps to build skills, relations
student-athletes, worked with youngsters across the county Saturday in
the first Roughrider Basketball Camp held at CHS on Saturday. The youth
learned skills of the games during the one-day event. (Photo by John
Krueger)
CENTER - Center basketball players and coaches had the opportunity to give back to the community and to help future hoop athletes work on their skills on Saturday as Center High School hosted the first Roughrider Basketball Camp in several years.
Numbers were not large, but the volume of instruction was as the youngsters received pointers, ran through a number of drills, had a good time and received rewards for their efforts in the one-day camp held here at Roughrider Gymnasium.
Several CHS athletes were on hand to help the young athletes, which gave those young men an opportunity to meet the youngsters up close and personal and the young athletes enjoyed getting to know players that they come and watch throughout the season.
"We haven't had a camp here in a while and I haven't hosted a camp since I've been back in Center so I thought it was time to give back to the community and try to get the kids involved in a camp this year," said Center boys Head Basketball Coach and Assistant Athletics Director Hiram Harrison. "Next year we plan to have another (camp) and step it up and have a football camp as well.
"I think having some of the players involved teaches them to give back to the community as well and to give the young kids a positive role model. These youngsters see these athletes on the field and on the court during the season, but they really don't know who they are. Today they got a chance to get to know them and our athletes got to know the children as well.
"I think any time you have high school athletes that become aware that they are a role model from these young kids, it helps them to recognize that they are being watched and that they should take their position in the community seriously."
Some of the Roughriders involved in the camp were Ty Hubbard, Se'Ryan Netherly and Cameron Cloudy. They joined CHS coaches Harrison, Marlin Cloudy, Jr. and Alex Munoz to break down and teach the children a variety of techniques that they can take home and work on during the rest of summer and every time they step on the court.
"It's important to start skill building at a young age because, just like any other sport, a continuous learning process is necessary to get better and better," Harrison explained. "We have a pretty good junior high program with Coach (Tracy) Bolton and Coach (Joey) Williams and Coach Cloudy helping out; they've done a great job of building that program at that level and I need to make sure I'm spending more time over there and helping with those kids.
"We've had some success at the high school level the past several years and we want to continue to have that success and that means continuing to work with these players' skills at an early level and to continue to build them."
Harrison said the opportunity to have athletic facilities open in the summer for athletes to come and go works in a variety of reasons.
"It's tough for athletes these days because they're involved in so many sports," he noted. "You've got athletes who don't get to work a whole lot on one individual sport because most of them are involved in multiple sports and go from one sport to the next. (Center Athletics Director and Head Football) Coach (Kevin) Goodwin is great about opening up the facilities and we're open from 8 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday so kids can come up here, work on their football or other sports and then athletes who play basketball can play basketball.
"Most of my players get about 8-9 games in every day and that helps them sharpen their skills, while allowing them to work with their teammates and to become a better unit. Just because coaches can't be involved doesn't mean they can't learn; just having that time on the court is valuable to their improvement heading into the upcoming season."
Harrison said athletes also have something to do to keep them busy and to keep them 'off the streets.'
"Now-a-days there are so many distractions for kids and so many ways to get into trouble, we like to give them a place to go during the day that they can stay out of trouble and keep them busy," the Center coach stated. "By the time they come up here and do their work for football or baseball or other sports and then play some basketball, we have to pretty much run them out of the gym. Then they go home, get something to eat, take a shower and relax and then get ready for the next day.
"Not only that, by them coming up here and working out, they stay in shape, which is valuable for 7-on-7 (football) and getting ready for the upcoming school year."