Day 31 - June 29th

Today couldn't have gotten off to a worse start as I found a parking ticket on my windshield at 7:10am. I was told by the housing people that I could park on the street until 8am without any concern and I even asked a police officer last night, who confirmed this. He was in the lobby of the dorm yesterday and said as long as my car wasn't blocking a fire hydrant, I was perfectly legal and didn't have to worry since I was leaving before 8. The $60 fine came as a shock and fortunately the housing coordinator is looking into the matter. More on this as hopefully it can be resolved.

Soon after the staff meeting ended, campers began to arrive for registration. Coach Wade opened up camp at 9am and we were off and running. The campers were already broken up into teams, which made things way less hectic than most other camps. We were able to dive right into stations. Along with another coach, we were assigned the cutting station. We worked on "L cuts" which was funny because Coach Wade had his VCU players doing this later on at his workouts. They were concentrating on the same things that we were teaching 11 and 12 year olds. Explode out of the cut to create separation from the defender and sweep through to attack the basket.

After taking a break for lunch, we had a guest speaker. Today, it was Coach Wes Long, who talked about the importance of listening. After speaking with the kids, he played one of my favorite camp games "Steph says" which is the same game as "Coach says" and Simon Says. The reason Steph was used is because he recruited Stephen Curry out of high school and actually sat next to the Curry family at Church every week. Coach Long said that Stephen was always such a great listener, which his future coaches have stated as well. There is no doubt that to be a great basketball player, you have to be a great listener!

I was a huge fan of how the afternoon was structured. Every 15 minutes, teams would switch to a new location within the gym. They could be doing everything from playing 5 on 5 on the main court, to team practice on a side court, and even knockout on one goal. The 15 minute intervals kept the attention span of most kids and focused them in on the task at hand. I will definitely bring this idea with me moving forward as I found it to be very successful.

Coach Wade invited the camp staff to stick around and watch workouts after camp. The three sessions contained high energy, and even higher intensity. Saying those dudes got after it would be putting it lightly! There was a lot of competition throughout the workout as the players worked on different skills. One of my goals this summer was to improve with player development, and I was able to pick up some different things from today. I'm already looking forward to their next workouts on Wednesday!