Chattanooga State Basketball Camp Is More Than Basketball

215 Inner City Youngsters Learn Jump Shots And Life Lessons

  • Thursday, July 20, 2017
  • Dennis Norwood
Chattanooga State men's head basketball coach Jay Price, right, speaks to the first class of participants of the inaugural Chattanooga State Basketball Camp during their awards ceremony Friday on campus. 140 young men participated in the camp, with 75 girls taking part the week before. Also pictured is Michael Williams, assistant women's coach at the school.
Chattanooga State men's head basketball coach Jay Price, right, speaks to the first class of participants of the inaugural Chattanooga State Basketball Camp during their awards ceremony Friday on campus. 140 young men participated in the camp, with 75 girls taking part the week before. Also pictured is Michael Williams, assistant women's coach at the school.
photo by Dennis Norwood

As Chattanooga State head men’s basketball coach Jay Price out it simply, “Chattanooga Parks and Recreation had the kids, we had the resources.” So, a partnership was struck where the city supplied 140 boys from the inner city and Chatt State brought the facilities. The girl's camp last week had 75 participants.

 

Just like that the first of what Coach Price hopes will be an annual event; the Chattanooga State Basketball Camp, blossomed.

The “just like that” also involved many donations of material and time. Various high school, middle school and AAU coaches from around the area, as well as members of the Chattanooga State coaching staff, gave freely of their time and others gave food items to supplement the lunches the city provided.

 

Teammates from Price’s days as a star player at Brainerd High gave anonymously and the personable coach reached into his own pockets to provide Powerade and such. There is no fee to attend the camp.

 

Why do this? Coach Price answered, “We saw a need for a basketball camp for these kids as a chance to give back, an opportunity to teach life skills such as attitude and how to improve themselves. If you’ll notice our awards did not include a Most Valuable Player, instead we chose to celebrate most improved, best attitude and a coaches’ award for best all around.” Missing were trophies, in their place were college-grade jerseys that the awardees immediately wore with pride.

 

Chattanooga State assistant women’s coach Michael Williams explained, “We’re not trying to just teach basketball. Many of these young boys come from single parent homes where there’s no man involved.  In some cases we are filling that role for the week. Many of these boys have never experienced being taught life skills by a man. We are teaching how to be a team player, how to share and be sociable and to show respect not only to adults but one another.”

 

All one had to do was watch the interaction between the staff and the campers to see how much each instant became a teachable moment. From correcting players’ habits or skills on the court to ensuring rules were followed off the court every instance was part correction, part reason why. It was evident that the coaches and staff all had genuine concern for each participant. As Williams put it, “We’re teaching that no means no.”

 

Johnny McFarland, a 12-year old who attends CSLA, said, “My favorite part of camp is learning to work together – building teamwork and learning different basketball skills.” He explained that one day he’d like a career in sports. Later, during his team’s time on the court, he showed how well he had learned to share the ball with his teammates and exhibited his shooting skills from the paint, as well as, the free throw line.

 

Another benefit, according to Richard West, Sports Coordinator for the City’s Youth and Family Development Office, is, “It teaches college level basketball and exposes these kids to a college right here in Chattanooga.”

 

Coach Williams expressed that there many of these young men who were quite gifted with basketball skills and it was evident as one watched moves on the floor reminiscent of a Steph Curry or Julius Erving. There were even a few that brought back memories of Larry Bird’s shooting ability.

 

One of the highlights was watching Rackwon Long, a 7’2” recent sophomore transfer to Chattanooga State’s program playing with some of the kids. His sheer size dwarfed all of them but they seemed to relish driving the basket on him. He even held one of the younger players on his shoulders so they could feel like it was to dunk the ball. He later told the youngster, “You know, you’re the only one that dunked this whole week.”  

 

One other thing that was very evident, the look of pride and love on Coach Price’s face as he stood and watched his dream ‘s effect on the young men running up and down the same court his Tigers use.

 

It was, indeed, a very good thing.

 

Contact Dennis Norwood at sportsshooter614@gmail.com; follow him on Twitter at @DennisENorwood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The on court action was fast and furious during the Chattanooga State Basketball camp held this past week on the school's campus.
The on court action was fast and furious during the Chattanooga State Basketball camp held this past week on the school's campus.
photo by Dennis Norwood
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