Men's Basketball Team to Bring Back Summer Skills Camp
The Chestnut Hill College men’s basketball team will host a youth basketball camp August 3-7 for boys and girls aged 8 through 14 who want to learn the fundamentals of the game.
The camp is making its comeback after an extended hiatus, thanks in large part to the team’s assistant coaches, Dominique Boone, Taylor Trevisan SGS ’16, Brandon Williams ’12 and Julian McFadden ’10.
“We decided to bring the camp back to create more opportunities to do what we love by teaching the game of basketball and working with kids,” says Boone, a Middle Tennessee State graduate and former AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) coach.
A second-year head coach with the Griffins, Boone attended basketball camps as a child and is hopeful the young campers at CHC get a positive experience much like the ones he himself had. “We hope our campers develop a fun-love for the game of basketball and are able to build the kind of long-lasting friendships I was able to make,” he says.
Backing the efforts of his assistant coaches is head men’s basketball coach, Jesse Balcer, who ran the College’s first basketball camps, which started in 2003.
“The best part about these camps is looking at just how much the kids are progressing,” Balcer says. “On Monday they’re dribbling the ball all over the place, by Wednesday they’ve gotten a pretty good handle but by Friday, they can run and dribble it up and down the court without losing it. It’s certainly rewarding as a coach to see how far the kids have come from the beginning to the end of camp.”
In addition to learning how to properly dribble the ball, the campers will be instructed in other key fundamentals such as shooting and passing, all of which Balcer believes are critical to the game of basketball.
“The fundamentals kind of get overlooked,” he says, adding that at a small camp, the coaches and counselors, many of whom will be CHC players, “can really offer personalized attention to the kids and spend the time one-on-one practicing those elements of the game.”
But more than learning the game of basketball, there is something else Balcer wants the kids to gain from the camp.
“We just want them to have fun, to have a good experience,” Balcer says. “We want them to leave with a love not just of the game but of CHC basketball and to have a really good memory of the College and of the camp.”
The camp is open to boys and girls aged 8-14. The fee for the week is $210. For more information, contact Taylor Trevisan (TrevisanT@chc.edu) or Dominique Boone (BooneD@chc.edu).
— Marilee Gallagher ’14
For all CHC Athletics news, visit the Griffins website here.