Boys and girls in grades 8 to 11 traded some time at the beach for time on the hardwood last week at the annual Sunshine Coast summer basketball camp.
Headed by coaches Don Van Os, Mike Hind and Ellen Thomas, the girls' camp featured 23 players and the boys' camp 17.
The week-long camp at Chatelech Secondary School saw players put through several hours of intensive skills training in an effort to get them better prepared for the start of the high school season in November.
"The girls come in with such great attitudes. It doesn't matter what we put them through - we push them pretty hard. There is no quitting and they seem to want to work really hard," said Van Os. "Our focus is to do things in a competitive environment because it's my feeling that's how kids get better. You make it competitive for them, but yet you are always focusing on the fundamentals.
"We did a lot of drills that we have designed to be high intensity, upbeat and challenging, because then to keep up, their skills have to get better. And then it's all shooting, ball handling, passing - the basic fundamentals, but in a competitive, intense environment."
Van Os said both the girls and guys camps were off a bit in terms of the number of participants, with the boys' camp at only 17.
"In previous years, we had a large group of kids who were our veterans and never missed and came back every year and they were so important to the camp because they raised the level of the camp," he said. "A lot of that was because of the two guys who made Team B.C. for the Western Canada Games. Because of players like them, they raised the calibre of the camp. We even push them harder. They can handle it more because we have a few good quality players who play at a high level and we can use them to raise everyone else up. We need more of that type of calibre in the girls to raise the level any higher."
Getting the numbers out and increasing the level of play at the high school level starts at the schools, according to Van Os.
"I think it starts in the schools where you have coaches that push them to be better," he said. "My understanding is that there seems to be a bit of a vacuum in coaching up here, and this is not unique to the Sunshine Coast. This is a provincial issue where you are not finding near the number of teacher coaches you used to have.
"I think somehow we need to see some sort of incentive for teachers to get back into coaching. I don't know what the answer is, but I think that makes the difference. When you have teachers in the school coaching, they see kids every day and you see that different commitment. As much as you need the out-of-school community coaches to keep your programs going, I think it's so valuable to have committed teachers who are coaching. It makes all the difference in the world."
