CASA Kid Goes to Basketball Camp at Lake Tahoe

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My CASA boy, whom I'll call Joey, is a seventeen-year old who has been living in group homes. He got the thrill of his lifetime this summer. Through the efforts of Matt Galvin, Leslie Adams and Jessica Brown from a local, private high school, and some help from CASA Sunshine and Daydreams funding, he was able to attend the Super Skills Basketball Camp at Lake Tahoe.

The camp was held from July 14-18 at the Incline Recreation Center. Campers stayed in the very modern and comfortable Sierra Nevada College residence halls. The camps are designed for boys and girls ages 12-18 who are becoming serious about the game of basketball. They are great camps for players who want to take their game to the next level. The staff consisted of college players, one former NBA player and top college and high school coaches. The camps and clinics were started three years ago to ensure that the Bay Area had a teaching basketball camp. There are plenty of basketball camps but none that attempt to attain the finest staff around and actually teach the kids how to play the game. They stress that Super Skills is not a day-care camp and basketball fundamentals are their highest priority. They pride themselves not on running the largest basketball camps but the finest.

Joey got to Incline Village via Greyhound and was able to return to San Francisco with the family of a new friend he made during the week. Each day started with the legendary "Early Bird Workout" session at 6:00 AM followed by a full day of intensive basketball training until 9:00 PM. A typical comment from participants was "I learned more about basketball than I ever had before. The drills helped me improve my game dramatically." On the second night of the camp I received a phone call at about 10:00 PM from Joey. He was so enthusiastic about his experience that he was hardly recognizable from the withdrawn person that he had been before attending the camp. Since he has no contact with his parents, as his CASA, I was the logical choice for a phone call which others were no doubt making to their parents.

Prior to attending this camp, Joey thought of himself as NBA material. This camp brought him back to reality and made him more on working harder to make a high school team and then get into a community college or a four-year college.

—Paul Murphy, SFCASA Volunteer