Incoming freshmen gain skills, encouragement from basketball camp 

Johnny Orvino, Contributing Reporter

Students join the summer basketball camp at York to keep their skills sharp over the summer and give them “a better chance to make the team.”

According to an Instagram poll, 78 percent of people said that joining a sports summer camp is beneficial. Students believed that the summer basketball camp brought benefits such as staying healthy, meeting new friends, and getting involved again after Covid-19 disrupted many players’ abilities to join programs that improved their skills.

“It is like tryouts before the tryouts, and it gets coaches thinking about the team,” freshman Brennan Kennedy said. 

Many basketball players believe that camps get players to work as a team. That’s beneficial because it builds leadership skills and teamwork skills. Students will become team players, helping them to care about their team, not themselves. 

Former freshman basketball coach and current varsity coach Mike Dunn also sees many benefits for students.

  “That’s what we pride ourselves in, being great teammates, working hard, controlling the controllables,” Dunn said. “We talked about attitude, effort, and mentality.” 

Many freshmen participated in the summer basketball camp as well. This camp will be new for all of these players. Freshmen who participated in the camp said that it was organized like a practice unlike basketball camps in middle school.

“Camps at York are different from middle school because of how it’s more of a practice than an actual camp,” freshman Teddy Arnett said. 

Students will get to know the coaches and players a little better by participating in this camp. Throughout the camp, players will gain trust with their coaches, and when tryouts come around the corner, players will already have a sense of what the coaches like to see. 

“That’s our number one goal in camp, it’s to get better individually and as a program,” Dunn said.  “I thought we took strides from the first week of June to right now.”

Camps will make kids more skilled and build their overall health and confidence.  According to the World Health Organization, kids should get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day. 

“It got me in shape for the football season because we did a lot of conditioning,” Arnett said.

Joining the camp gives freshman students an idea of what the tryouts will be like. Many students at the camp said that it was more like a tryout than a camp. 

“This camp was more valuable because it gave you insight on the upcoming season,” freshman Maksym Lupa said.

Covid-19 has affected the way kids can maintain their health and skills with certain sports. Camps, clubs, and programs had shut down or required social distancing with masks. This has made it hard for players to get training and learn new ways to play their sport. With most programs opening back up, players have a chance to be able to get back into a routine so they can make the team and stay fit. 

  “Well I wasn’t able to do basketball camps for a long time because of Covid, so the York camp was my first camp in a while,” Arnett said

It’s also beneficial for freshman students to at least get feel for what York is like. Some students felt that it will be easier for them to come back to school in the fall because they got to know some new people in York.

“The camp will make me more comfortable as I got to know new people in the building,” Lupa said.

Most players have said they’ve benefited from the camp and having the ability to start getting involved again. Some people think that this camp is a great way to make new friends especially because of Covid, lots of friend groups veered away from each other.  

“Some of the people were making new friends but I realized that I knew most of the people there from other basketball camps,” Arnett said.

Even though Arnett knew most of the people at the camp, he only knew those people because he got involved in other camps. The trainers want to make this camp positive and something that the students can look forward to. The coaches pushed the kids hard, but they did it effectively.

“Our whole culture is based on positive encouragement, so we’re teaching, doing repetition, and just continuing to encourage, which is building trust,” Dunn said.