Sports
Over 150 attend boys basketball camp
Sunday, 08 July 2012 by Chuck Kelly
The numbers of participants in Belton sports at all level’s continues to climb. Over 150 third through sixth grade athletes participated Belton’s basketball camp for younger players this week. Photo by David TumaTiger head basketball coach John Osborn called it a "gym-full" --- the roughly 150 boys that turned out for his basketball camps this week.
Seventy-five incoming 3rd thru 6th graders in the mornings and another seventy-five incoming 7th thru 9th grade athletes in the afternoons.
He said that they all looked good.
"I actually changed my afternoon camp. I told them that I wasn't going to treat it as a normal camp, like in the past, because they need to be treated like guys who would be competing for something special. You know, competing in junior high and then coming up here to compete in high school at a whole new level. We really made it a very practice-oriented type camp," Osborn related. "Now, the little ones we kept about the same....with hot shots, layups and things like that."
The coach told the campers that he really wanted the camps to be a stepping stone into his program as they go thru it.
"I thought it went well," he said." We talked about a lot of principles and I found out what they were really understanding and what they needed to work on. I thought that it went particularly well. The kids all worked hard and I will be interested to see them tomorrow, especially the afternoon camp. We worked, we put them thru some tough work and hard situations and there'll be some sore kids tomorrow."
Osborn commented that every year he sees the middle school campers getting better and better. As far as understanding, he credits the middle school coaches with doing a good job.
As for camp coaching help, freshman coach Charlie Lewis was on hand, as was Jonathan Jones, the JV and varsity assistant coach, Kent Fuller from LBMS and a student teacher. As always, the coach's wife, Laura Osborn, was there to keep everything organized and keep all the coaches going.
Of course, the varsity Tiger players were there watching....coaching sometime....and the younger campers all looked up to them.
"I think every year gets a little better because we've worked with these kids and they kinda understand what's going on....concepts, what we're trying to do," Osborn commented, "This is a good group, a special bunch of kids and I'm excited to watch how they grow and develop as they advance thru school. Some of these kids are going to be really good basketball players!"
