My summer at camp...Volume 1

Astro camp, sea camp, idol camp, tech camp, basketball camp. You ever been? What's the craziest camp you've ever attended because I never went to one during the euphoric days of summer. Here in Cali it's felt like summer on and off for two months but the real, bonafide break to end all breaks begins in early June for most schools. Then the dilemma. What do working parents do with their kids with the babysitter (a.k.a. school) out of commission. Sure there's summer school for the districts still offering it amidst an epic budgetary freeze. But seriously, what's a parent to do given the perils of idleness? Hey, I found out there's even a Secret Agent camp. That's kind of oxymoronic that it's advertised.

Anyhow, if I kick to you straight, I can say that I never appreciated the power of a good camp experience until I worked one myself. The first basketball camp I ever worked was summer of 1996 while still playing basketball for Chapman University. It was a day camp and I had a co-ed squad with pre-teen superstars. They showed up early and worked hard all day when they weren't doing cartwheels or climbing something/someone. We won the championship, my leading rebounder was a 9-year old girl who probably never played basketball again and the lone five-year-old on the team is probably graduating this year to go play on scholarship at a PAC-10 University. He was that good. I remember asking my leading rebounder if she told her mom about her award and she melodiously exclaimed, "She was beaming at the news." Athletes don't talk like that. Right, but these were kids having fun at camp.

Time went on and eight years later I worked NBC basketball camp at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. Camp on roids for sure. Kids arrive on a Sunday and nobody sits down for five days. Ball Handling then breakfast then skill work then lunch then games, dinner, skits, games and push-ups. After day one I was thinking camp did well to miss me but then I witnessed something bizarre - that if kids live in community with others they grow. Sleeping, eating, suffering together all foster invaluable traits such as:

• Compassion
• Competitiveness
• Identity within the Team
• The ability to motivate others
• The ability to be coachable
• Humility

The more I work with summer campers the more I'm convinced that it's not a good idea. IT'S A NECESSARY IDEA. I keep the pictures, the stories, the dinner time discussions, the stinch of "boy + chlorine" all as signs that transformation is going on at thousands of camps nationwide every summer. Usually money is the only limitation but in light of the incalculable benefit, should it be?

p.s. - Lookin' for a camp in So. Cal? visit nbccamps.com and look for Hope International University's site in Fullerton.