Dozens of Elma and McCleary youth got the opportunity to learn from a basketball great as former Duke All-American and NBA All-Star Christian Laettner held a basketball camp on Saturday at Elma High School.
Laettner, who led the Blue Devils to two NCAA National Championships and won a gold medal on the famed 1992 Olympic “Dream Team,” held two sessions for grade-schoolers through his Christian Laettner Basketball Academy on Saturday at the Elma High School gym.
“I love it on the west side of the Cascade Mountains and out in the rural areas. I grew up in a rural area, so I know exactly what the life is like, what’s important to them and how awesome it is out here,” said Laettner, who grew up in the small town of Angola, New York. “A small-town feel and that’s exactly where I’m from and that’s why I do these camps in the small towns.”
Laettner has held camps in small towns in states including Wisconsin, Minnesota and Colorado and said the current trip to Grays Harbor County was his first to the area since his NBA playing days, when teams made trips to the pacific northwest to face the Portland Trailblazers and the now-defunct Seattle Supersonics.
“This is the first time I’ve been to the Seattle area in a long, long time,” he said. “It’s beautiful out here. I’ve got to know (Elma assistant coach) Jason (Olsen) out here a little bit and he said, ‘Come out to Elma and do a camp,’ and it’s just been so much fun. It’s my type of territory and my type of area. I like working with small-town kids and families. They pay attention, they listen and it’s just a great time.”
The camp consisted of two sessions, a two-hour morning practice for grade-school children followed by an afternoon session for middle-schoolers.
“With the really young group, I stress things like catch and pass the ball with two hands and get better at your speed dribble. … Don’t worry about your 3-pointer right now. With the kids, you are hoping they pick up on two or three basic things,” he said, adding he worked a bit with the Elma varsity team the night before. “Last night with the varsity boys, we worked on higher-level things. We worked on playing 5-on-5 without dribbling and I tried to get the kids to pass and cut and move and not to rely on their dribble so much.”
PHOTO BY FOREST WORGUM Former Duke men’s basketball star and NBA Dream Teamer Christian Laettner exhibits a passing drill at a youth basketball camp on Saturday at Elma High School.
Laettner said while the kids don’t often recognize him, their parents know exactly who he is, eluding to his famous game-winning buzzer-beater to defeat Kentucky in a 1992 NCAA Tournament regional-final game, widely considered to be one of the best men’s college basketball games every played.
“The kids don’t know anything about me except from what their parents tell them or what they see on YouTube, so for the kids, maybe it’s just learning a few things on the court because they know I played in the NBA a long time ago,” Laettner said. “With the parents, it’s just fun to reminisce and they all say, ‘I was here when you hit the Kentucky shot,’ so it’s a lot of fun. … I love hearing everyone’s stories like that. That’s why it’s fun and interesting to run into the parents because they all have a story like that.”
As it turns out, Laettner explained he gets as much out of running the camps across the country as the camp participants and their families.
“Every age group has different things you’ve got to stress and it’s so much fun and I love doing it. It’s not even like work. … I could do this all day long,” he said. “It’s fun to see the kids having fun. It’s fun to hear the parents’ stories and that’s why I do it.”
