Erin Hoops

Slam Dunk

Camp 2002

Interspersed with these pictures from the Slam Dunk Camp 2002 are some individual efforts made by campers some as young as 8 and some as old as 14.  These individual efforts are followed by stories, facts and figures, but no fantasies from Slam Dunk Camp 2002.

Alex Bork and Stefan Knaus

made 16 lay-up in one minute.

Jordan Wozniak made 23

left hand lay-ups in a row.

(Jordan is right handed.)

Ben Foster and Matt Pereira

shot 100 shots and missed only 4.

Ryan Pinto made 

20 right hand lay-ups in a row

while Stefan Knaus made

15 of them in a row.

A gals team activity...

Katherine, Brittany, Amy and Sara

went at it and made 50 shots.

Brett Van Beek a Friday Camp Guest

made 15 right hand lay-up in a row.

Kyle Pinto made

50 shots missing only 5.

Kyle Kinsey went from shooting

12% on the first day of camp,

to shooting 80% on the fifth day.

Ron Yeung of the Bell Raptorball co-ordinator

coaches some camp visitors from Station Road

Nursery School's camp on Wednesday

afternoon.

Campers in action with Jermaine

from Bell Raptorball too.

Above photos courtesy Robyn Peterson.

Read.

Enjoy.

Get the feel.

What follows are the two articles submitted to the Erin Advocate in late Aug. 2002 for publication.

Slam Dunk Camp 2002 – Part I of II

Click the small (thumbnail) pictures in this section to view a larger version.  These thumbnail pictures are from Sandra Traversy.

This year’s camp was the best ever.

The Kids were fantastic.

Erin Hoops is proud of what they have accomplished.

Oh!.  The Kids are proud also of what they have accomplished.

Our previous best camp had been in 1999.  This one topped it easily thanks to the volunteer coaching pool consisting of  Sam and Fredd Eyles, Melissa Faber, Jose Hernandez, Chris and Stephanie Giugovaz, Blake Kaitting, Nathan Orr, Darren Short, John Whitney, and Rachel Wallace.  Their love of basketball was contagious.  They coached hard.  They played basketball continually both among themselves and with the kids.  Their role model set the tone of the camp.  I will always remember seeing all the coaches all the time with a ball in their hands. 

The camp was a superlative effort on the part of the campers and their Volunteer Coaches.

In structuring this camp I tried to structure and be able to live with an environment that was basically organized chaos.  We wanted the camp to provide freedom to the kids to do their thing as they managed to do what we the coaches were working with them to learn.  We succeeded.  The camp definitely for all of us was fun.  If you watched you saw activity everywhere all the time.  What was being done was often hard to figure out, but there was a definite pattern. The camp fitted Peter Drucker’s philosophy that organized chaos is the ultimate managerial approach for the 21^st century. (Drucker is the pre-eminent guru of Management Sciences.)  For more pictures of the camp, see www.erinhoops.ca web site’s page titled Slam Dunk Camp 2002.  These pictures are thanks to Robyn Peterson and Sandra Traversy’s who came voluntarily with their cameras to capture the camp for all of us involved in Erin Hoops.

Did learning occur in the camp.  Oh yes.  On the first day of the camp, one camper made only 2 of the 15 or 13% of the recorded shots he took.  24 hours later he made 16 of 35 or 46%.  (Sorry it probably wasn’t your kid, unless of course your kid was in the camp.)  Another kid in the camp made only 12% of her shots to become a very happy and proud camper when on day five she went home having made 80% of her shots.  Camp statistics are kept daily by the coaches to support these numbers.

Needless to say, it was a fantastic camp.

More stories about the camp next week in Part II. 

Slam Dunk Camp 2002 – Part II

As I said last week, this year’s Slam Dunk Basketball Camp was a fabulous success.

Parents were on the sidelines much of the time watching their child having fun.  Erin Hoops runs its camps and for that matter all of its activities in an open fashion.  Parents can come and watch what’s happening at any time.  As I say often, “They are your kids.  Feel free to come and watch at any time.”  Parents did and liked what they saw, which was active, smiling, excited campers almost all the time.

The camp succeeded so well that kids went home and practiced what they were learning in their home baskets.  Hundreds of extra shots were reported voluntarily with pride each day.  The camp never asked kids to do this.  THEY just did it.  The love of basketball is contagious and spreading rapidly in the Town of Erin.

Kids brought gifts to coaches.  Coaches bought cookies, ice cream bars for kids.

Wednesday again had a surprise coach appear.  Out of the blue, and totally unexpected Adrienne Thompson appeared with her smile and wound up helping her friends, the other camp coaches, experience the joy of seeing kids really learn basketball.  One eleven year old said at the end of day three, “I never learned so much in one day before.”

On day four, Tim Yawney came to the camp as an invited guest coach to teach shooting.  The day was a success.  Everyone wound up improving their shooting abilities.  Tim wound up learning what a frozen push-up was from the kids.  Everyone learned in the camp.

Day four also led to the kids asking if they could bring a friend for the last day.  This request was untriggered by those of us running the camp.  It was a spontaneous uprising totally out of nowhere, by the kids themselves.  Four friends came Friday.  They were woven into the camp.  Friday in years future may become bring a friend day.  One camper, age 12, who couldn’t reach me to gain approval to bring a friend decided it would be A-OK to do so, and he had read the feel of how the camp was for the KIDS FIRST correctly.

The coaches changed the camp as we went too.  They added in (in all four groups) the concept of giving their team a single wrapped candy each time everyone scored in a row without a miss.  The kids loved it.  The coaches were kept on their toes as campers said, “We did it.”, and another candy was awarded.  The coaches were proud of their teams, and the shopping bag of candies got “gobbled” up.

Visiting parents in the latter part of the camp kept telling us how much change they could see in their child.  Other kids talked to Mom and Dad about signing them up in Erin Hoops Fall/Winter Program on Saturdays for their age level.  You can read about the Erin Hoops Programs and even register people on line by just visiting the Erin Hoops Web site at www.erinhoops.ca or by going to the Erin Centre 2000 gym on Sunday Sept. 8 or 15 from 1:30 to 3:00 pm. when registrations may be done in person for all of Erin Hoops programs.

A final unpublished camp 2002 story

A feature of the camp was learning the timed team drill called Drill One.  Drill one is very simple.  It features each player in turn dribbling hell bent for leather against the stop watch to score at the far end of the gym.  Then get their made basketball, and dribble back to score at the other basket.  Finally grabbing the made ball and passing to their next teammate who then races off too.  Missing the basket at either end means start your part in the drill over.  On the first day the best any team could manage with numerous tries was one minute and seventeen seconds.  Twenty-four hours later all times were under a minute and one team did Drill One in 38 second.  There was a lot of chest thumping as this magnificent achievement was felt by all.

I wonder what next year will bring.

Patrick Suessmuth