Basketball camps begin at the end of month

By TRAVIS METCALF

TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS May 12, 2008 10:49 am

— Sequoyah High School girls’ basketball coach Bill Nobles will begin his fifth season of hosting the Lady Indians Basketball Camp on May 27-30.
Nobles said since the first camp when there were 48 kids, the camp has grown in attendence every year.
“Last year we had 138 kids,” Nobles said. “A lot of it has to do with the camp itself. The kids get to work with our kids. I’m humbled by the turnout and all the good things parents have to say about us.”
The Lady Indians were the three time defending state champions of class 3A and were ranked No. 1 for the entire season this year, but ended their streak of state championships after losing in the state championship game to Oklahoma City Millwood. Nobles said his team’s history of success also has a lot to do with the camp’s success.
“It obviously can’t hurt,” Nobles said. “I won’t say that if we were going 12-12 and bowing out in regional play, we probably won’t have that kind of a attendence. I don’t think I’m overstating that we have the largest camp in the area.”
Nobles said that while the students at the camp do some of the drills that the Lady Indians do in practice, the camp isn’t about giving them a big workout.
“We try to make sure our kids have fun,” Nobles said. “We don’t want to make it like it’s our practice even though our practices can have some fun elements in it. We don’t try to get that intense. we try to get some fun things in there such as a daily Simon Says contest. We had our little personal touches that I’ve learned over the years from successful camps to make sure kids are having fun and still learning basketball.”
The camp is broken up into two sessions. The morning session, running from 8-11, is for grades 2-5. The afternoon session, which runs from 1-4, is for grades 6-9.
“We primarily teach the younger kids how to dribble, shoot, pass, we work on the fundamentals of offense and defense,” Nobles said. “The older ones, we show them how to cut screen, run different defenses, we run a lot of motion offense in various varieties. A majority of these kids come to us having played a lot of zone.”
Nobles said there isn’t much of a difference in attendence between the older kids and the younger kids.
“You’d be amazed,” Nobles said. “We have a tremendous turnout of younger kids. You’d think it would be the older kids that could come more often. It’s been pretty even, maybe 10 or 15 percent more in the older crowds, but not much.”
The camp includes a T-shirt, souvenir game ball, breakfast and luch as well as some camp awards. Registration dates for the camp are May 17 and May 24 from 8 a.m. to Noon at the SHS old gym.
The Indians will also be hosting its basketball camp from June 2-5.
Hulbert High School’s girls’ basketball camp runs from May 19-2from 8:30 a.m. to Noon.