More basketball camps featuring specialization

I had the good fortune last week to speak to a bunch of eager high school girls at the John Bapst Memorial High School summer basketball camp.

Under the direction of Crusaders head girls coach Mike Webb, these 20 or so enthusiastic kids were gathered in the old YMCA building on Taft Street in Bangor to learn the finer points of footwork.

I couldn’t help thinking as I was lecturing and running instructional drills for the players just how much summer camps have changed through the years since I last played the game some 35 years ago.

These days, camps for kids in the vacation months have moved from wide-open instruction in the sport of choice to specialization in one or two skill areas of that particular game.

A recent television feature on Cable News Network spoke in length about youth sports. One of CNN’s guests was old friend Bob Bigelow, who through the written and the spoken word has been on a mission for a number of years to help clean up youth sports in America.

As far as specialty camps go, Bigelow runs the second-largest one of its kind in the country. Bob operates what he calls a Big Man camp in Massachusetts, which finds college and professional basketball coaches sending their centers and forwards to the camp in the summer to learn advanced inside skills from the former University of Pennsylvania star.

Bigelow’s camp is second in size and reputation to only former University of California coach Pete Newell’s Big Man camp in Hawaii.

In Maine, specialty skills camps are dotting the camp map again this year.

Longtime Maine Maritime Academy of Castine men’s basketball coach Chris Murphy has his own version of a big man camp. Chris is a stickler for detail. He is also a quality coach with a knack for teaching. Campers get their money’s worth at anything Chris runs. Chris recently completed his well-known Post Up Camp for big kids last week.

Down the road apiece at Central Maine Community College in Auburn, men’s hoop boss Dave Gonyea offers a variety of camps to eager youngsters each summer and fall. Boys and girls camps for guards top the list of CMCC offerings. Gonyea’s specialty camps run from Sept. 18 to Nov. 6 this year.

Like coach Murphy, Gonyea is a solid fundamental instructor. Campers who register for Dave’s camps are going to learn the area of expertise they sign up for – and then some. It’s as simple as that. I would put Murphy and Gonyea at the top of any coaching list I’d make for sheer knowledge of the game.

At Mount Desert Island High School in Bar Harbor this week, former John Bapst boys basketball coach Bob Cimbollek is in the midst of running his own specialty summer camp. Cimbollek’s baby is shooting, and the 150 or so youngsters who have signed up for his camp are going to learn the finer points of putting the ball in the basket.

All things considered, shooting seems to be a dying art.

The proliferation of team events nationwide in basketball during the vacation months finds kids of all ages learning team skills and concepts, with little to no concentration on shooting techniques.

As a result, kids aren’t spending the needed time alone in their backyards or at playgrounds shooting a ball at a hoop.

Just ask Cimbollek.

“Those days are gone,” said Cimbollek recently, preparing for his trip to MDI and commenting on notoriously low shooting percentages from last year’s high school basketball tournament in both boys and girls play.

“Our camps teach the basics of the shot itself,” he added. A much-needed rudimentary instruction, I might add.

Cimbollek will next appear in Bangor July 31 to Aug. 5 at the Husson College Shooting Camp. This time he will join Husson women’s basketball coaches Kissy Walker and Randy Dodge to offer youngsters instruction on perimeter shooting.

The author of two fundamental guides on basketball, Cimbollek sees two problems in the shooting world today at all levels of basketball: technique errors and lack of practice time.

Campers at Cimbollek’s affair receive a copy of the celebrated coach’s shooting manual, “Basketball’s Simplified & Scientific Methods Manual For Improving Perimeter Shooting Percentages,” and a 90-minute video of their own improvement during that weeklong session.

Yes, the way of the sports camp world these days is specialization. I only wish these affairs had been in place when I was a kid.

NEWS columnist Ron Brown, a retired high school basketball coach, can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net